Free tools to convert VHD into VMDK disk files. I was wondering on how many tools can be found to convert virtual hard disks files from VHD (Microsoft) into VMDK (VMware) and vice versa. Well, sort of. Because not all the tools here are able to do the conversion both ways -:). Those tools, one.

There are times when you use Virtualbox and for some reason need to convert over to VMWare or Hyper-V (or other).

Finding this process on the Internet is tedious, and usually involves using QEMU, an open-source Virtualization product to perform the .raw --> .vmdk step. However, if you are running on Windows, the QEMU Windows port will not perform the conversion without failure (at least on Windows 7!). So with that, I decided to go another route with a handy tool that I've used for years in some variation or another, WinImage. It is a worthwhile app to add to your IT toolbox, and I highly suggest supporting the author.

Tools you'll need:

. Sun VirtualBox - http://www.virtualbox.org
. WinImage (Shareware) - http://www.winimage.com

Requirements:

Free disk space should be around 2 times the size of the .vdi disk image file size.

For the sake of this document, we will use .vmdk as our output file, but the conversion steps are the same when it comes to .vhd.

3 Steps total

Step 1: Convert the .vdi file to a raw disk image (.raw)

How To Convert Vdi To Vmdk

Perform a search on your system for existing .vdi files that you are going to convert.

a. Go to a cmd prompt and navigate to the VirtualBox folder (typically c:program filessunVirtualBox).

b. Execute the following command against the .vdi file in question:

vboxmanage.exe internalcommands converttoraw 'xpath-to-vdidiskimage.vdi' 'x:path-to-output-folderdiskimage.raw'

Depending on the size of your .vdi file, the time for conversion may greatly vary. Also, be sure you have around 2 times the available drive space that your existing .vdi currently consumes on your logical volume.

i.e. if you have a 16gb .vdi file, just to be safe, I would make sure you have 32Gb free on your physical disk to ensure the conversion process can complete without errors. Usually you won't need this much, but it is good to be safe.

Step 2: Convert .raw disk image to .vmdk format using WinImage

a. Open WinImage, click on 'Disk'> 'Convert Virtual Hard Disk image...'

b. Next to the 'File name:' field, click on the file type drop-down and select 'All files (*.*)'.

Qemu

c. Navigate to the location where you stored your outputted .raw disk file and double-click it.

d. Choose whether you wish to 'Create Fixed Size Virtual Hard Disk' or 'Create Dynamically Expanding Virtual Hard Disk' (I typically pick the latter) and click 'OK'.

e. Navigate to a folder where you wish to store the newly converted image to. Next to 'Save as type:' (for the sake of this How-to) choose 'VMWare VMDK (*.vmdk). and click 'Save'.

You should see a 'Reading disk' progress indicator giving you the status of the conversion process. I've converted 30Gb images in about 10 minutes or less...but I have no firm numbers.

Qemu Convert Vdi To Vmdk Free Download For Mac

f: Once the conversion is complete, you'll see a dialog box that will ask you if you wish to connect to the partition. Click 'OK' if you wish to view the contents.

Step 3: Import your disk images into your existing Virtual Infrastructure

Now that the files are converted, copy or move your converted disk image files to your virtualization software's datastore/disk storage folder.

Once moved/copied, you should now be able to create a new Virtual Machine and utilize the disks you just converted.

Note that you will need to install the proper guest additions/tools to the virtual machine when you get it booted, so you will likely not have network access right off the bat.

Indeed, that was a quick How-to, but it's an important process that gets easily overlooked. The WinImage step makes quick work of converting the .raw image...and it is easy!

References

Convert Vdi To Vmdk In Windows

• Download: VirtualBox
• Download: WinImage

12 Comments

• Pure Capsaicin
  Yasaf Burshan Apr 8, 2010 at 08:20am

  Nice one!

• Habanero
  b0b Apr 9, 2010 at 02:03am

  Handy howto, thanks!

• Pure Capsaicin
  Justin.Davison Jul 14, 2010 at 06:57am

  Very nice, I have an odd feeling I will be doing a few of these conversions soon and you just saved me some searching.

• Mace
  RoguePacket Apr 2, 2011 at 08:23pm

  Good to know!
  Going from server sprawl to virtual sprawl.

• Mace
  Denis Kelley Nov 10, 2011 at 01:58pm

  I saw this, but decided to try command line using VBoxManage. That worked very well and converted in one step.

• Pure Capsaicin
  Rob Dunn Nov 10, 2011 at 02:14pm

  When this was written, I think there wasn't a built-in way to do this...thanks for letting me know!

• Poblano
  HaydnWVN May 2, 2013 at 11:20am

  There are many V2V conversion tools now, my favourite is 'Starwind Software V2V Image Converter'.

  It can convert any way between any of the following: VMDK, VHD and IMG (RAW).

• Jalapeno
  OzIT Apr 5, 2015 at 02:56pm

  I always avoided any issues by using vdmk as the file format when I created a new VirtualBox VM if I switching between the platforms was a consideration. Now a days I'd just use one of the many V2V/P2V/V2P tools. I've used Paragon's in the past because it's part of the disk management toolkit I already have.

• Pure Capsaicin
  Rob Dunn Apr 5, 2015 at 04:37pm

  @OzIT: Good tip. Remember, this how-to is five years old and a lot of these tools did not exist at the time of writing!

• Thai Pepper
  FelipePena Jul 26, 2018 at 09:09pm

  Good write up. I played with Virtual Box for quite a while until Windows 10 rolled out and I was able to use Hyper-V. This would have helped to convert some old Virtual Box machines instead of starting from scratch like I did. Oh well. Starting from scratch wasn't so terrible. It gave me a fresh start each time.
  Thanks for posting

• Datil
  KrasimirPetrov_ Sep 25, 2018 at 10:25am

  There are many V2V conversion tools now.
  Thanks for posting

• Anaheim
  Spicyrussian Mar 1, 2019 at 07:43am

  Nice article. Thanks for the information! Might come in handy sometime