Convert vdi to vmdk (virtualbox hard disk conversion to vmware hard disk format)

VBoxManage internalcommands converttoraw winxp.vdi winxp.raw && qemu-img convert -O vmdk winxp.raw winxp.vmdk && rm winxp.raw

Converts a .vdi file to a .vmdk file for use in a vmware virtual machine. The benefit: using this method actually works. There are others out there that claim to give you a working .vmdk by simply using the qemu-img command alone. Doing that only results in pain for you because the .vmdk file will be created with no errors, but it won’t boot either.

Be advised that these conversions are very disk-intensive by nature; you are probably dealing with disk images several gigabytes in size.

Once finished, the process of using the new .vmdk file is left as an exercise to the reader.

qemu · vboxmanage · virtualbox · vmdk · vmware