KVM how to add a physical Internal (windows) disk to a VM

Hi folks
I'm messing around trying to convert a Windows2Go system back to a physical one -- So I needed to copy the the windows to go system back to an internal HDD - and I'm running my OS (LINUX) the VM (which was defined originally as a WintoGo system so if just restored to an internal drive Windows still thinks its on a USB device.

So the problem is - how to copy the VM to a physicall windows disk -- once I've got a physical disk initialised in the VM then standard tools e.g macrium can clone it and I can work on converting it back to a "standard" windows system. I really don't want to re-install fresh Windows when I don't need to.

You can't do this specifically in the GUI - you need to enable xml editing from the Virtual machine manager and then simply add this in the appropriate place
<disk type="block" device="disk">
<driver name="qemu" type="raw"/> [this mens guest physical I/O routines used and not "Virtual ones"]
<source dev="/dev/sda"/> [your partition / disk]
<target dev="vdb" bus="virtio"/>
</disk>

save and apply and then ensure that's NOT the boot disk and boot your VM

Now in Windows GUEST you can see the disk drive




the virtual machine manager will show it as :




There might be easier ways but if you've only got at the moment one spare machine with an empty HDD and an external device running your KVM system plus a Windows VM - then you have to use the available tools.

Of course if I were at home I could just restore an image but I'm away currently !!!! and I need a Windows (physical) machine !!!!

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks for the tip!
It's very comforting that it works like this.

jimbo45 said:

<disk type="block" device="disk">
<driver name="qemu" type="raw"/> [this mens guest physical I/O routines used and not "Virtual ones"]
<source dev="/dev/sda"/> [your partition / disk]
<target dev="vdb" bus="virtio"/>
</disk>

Click to expand...

I would try it with this as well:
Should work in any cases.

But doesn't seem that important if it works with virtio; then Windows sees it if you have the virtio-win drivers installed.

Only other alternative I see is via a disk in an external USB hdd enclosure (different than topic's internal disk) but then it gets added through "USB Host Device" hardware.
Works fine with a lot of SATA / NVMe / USB external drives.

Hopachi said:

Thanks for the tip!
It's very comforting that it works like this.



I would try it with this as well:

Code:

<target dev="sda" bus="sata"/>

Should work in any cases.

But doesn't seem that important if it works with virtio; then Windows sees it if you have the virtio-win drivers installed.

Only other alternative I see is via a disk in an external USB hdd enclosure (different than topic's internal disk) but then it gets added through "USB Host Device" hardware.
Works fine with a lot of SATA / NVMe / USB external drives.

Click to expand...

Sometimes you need to "Convince" Windows (in the Guest of course) that it's running on an internal HDD or you might find Windows won't update because it thinks it's on an external drive and running as a WintoGo system which has limitations.

If you attach a USB drive as a USB device then Windows knows it's external.

However if your external usb is say attached as /dev/sdx as a physical disk then Windows is"poodlefaked" into thinking that /dev/sdx is an internal drive and windows will install / update without a problem.

I usually update the physical windows install from within the VM - then boot on real machine and update drivers if necessary. You can use this method also to run on non supported hardware too.

Cheers
jimbo