How to convert flat raw disk image to vmdk for virtualbox or vmplayer?

okutane picture okutane · Jan 18, 2009 · Viewed 184k times · Source

I have some old images of old Linux filesystems in flat file format. they can be used by Bochs, but I need to run them with Virtual Box. Virtual Box cannot use images in this format, so I need to convert these images from flat file to .vmdk file format. Is there any way to do this?

Answer

krosenvold picture krosenvold · Jan 18, 2009

First, install QEMU. On Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, run:

$ apt-get install qemu

Then run the following command:

$ qemu-img convert -O vmdk imagefile.dd vmdkname.vmdk

I’m assuming a flat disk image is a dd-style image. The convert operation also handles numerous other formats.

For more information about the qemu-img command, see the output of

$ qemu-img -h