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I have a 8-9 year old Windows 7 system drive that I would like to boot into. I no longer have the hardware that the OS was running on so obviously booting this up on my latest desktop is out of the question (i am pretty sure).

Is there a way to boot this OS up on some VM/Utility or something that would allow me to login and "experience" my Windows from back then along with my programs and everything that came with it?

Thanks!

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  • You didn’t provide any information about the original OS version or what version of OS you intend to do this with. It’s a little hard to be specific with no details. What you’re interested in is Disk2VHD. docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd. Or a similar converter if you intend to use a different hypervisor.
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 1:49
  • Sorry, i realized this after i posted. I just edited a questions - the old OS is Windows 7.
    – enlightenedOne
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 1:51
  • And what OS do you currently have? Specifically - is it home or pro, etc.
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 2:00
  • Currently - Windows 10 Pro.
    – enlightenedOne
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 2:04

3 Answers 3

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It’s fairly straight forward to do this. Because you have Windows 10 Pro, let’s use the free Hyper-V role that is built in.

  1. Enable the Hyper-v role and configure an external virtual switch: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/canitpro/2015/09/08/step-by-step-enabling-hyper-v-for-use-on-windows-10/
  2. Use an external USB drive bay or USB to SATA adapter to hook your old drive up to your new computer. Or, if you’re adventurous just plug the old hard drive in to your new computer using a spare SATA port. The old drive should show up as one or more additional drive letters. Make a note of those drive letters.
  3. Use Disk2VHD to convert all drives found in the previous step to a single VHDX file. Save the VHDX file anywhere that you have enough space to hold the file. It will be at least as big as the amount of space used on the old drive. Note: You can avoid booting issues later by making sure the System partition on the old drive is included in this step. If the System partition doesn’t show up in Disk2VHD, go in to Disk Management and assign a drive letter to the old System partition then try this step again.
  4. Create a new generation 1 virtual machine in Hyper-V and when you are prompted to connect or create a virtual disk, use the option to connect an existing VHDX file and point it to the VHDX file you created earlier. Give the virtual machine at least 2GB of memory. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/hyper-v-on-windows/quick-start/create-virtual-machine
  5. Start your new virtual machine and connect to it and you will be using your old operating system. You do so from the Hyper-V management console.

You should install the virtual machine integration services so that your old operating system supports the features of the hyper-v environment. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/manage/manage-hyper-v-integration-services

Note: If Windows fails to boot you’ll need to rebuild the boot records.

To do so, you’ll need to get in to a command prompt using Windows recovery environment. If Windows doesn’t boot automatically to the recovery environment, you’ll need to use a Windows 7 setup disc or .iso added to the virtual machine and boot from it. Now run the following commands at the command prompt.

bootrec /fixmbr
diskpart
select disk 0
list partition
select partition n (n is the Windows OS partition)
active
exit (to exit diskpart)
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
exit

Now reboot the computer.

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  • Thank you, this worked perfectly! I am now trying to resolve some issues during boot-up. Windows goes directly into Recovery at boot-up.
    – enlightenedOne
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 4:44
  • @enlightenedOne I added some additional instructions to fix the booting. The problem is there is also a system partition on the original drive and that should’ve been captured also. My instructions were a bit inaccurate in that. So you can try to fix the booting using my additional instructions, or you can perform the procedure again but make sure you select all partitions associated with the old drive when using Disk2VHD. I’m not sure if the system partition will get a drive letter or show up in Disk2VHD though. Let me know if not - you can just assign a drive letter to it in disk management
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 5:15
  • I also edited my answer to suggest converting ALL partitions to a VHDX file rather than just the Windows partition. Sorry about the trouble.
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 5:22
  • yes, when i first created vhd i did not know about including "system partition", so when i booted up i immediately got "disk read error occurred". But quickly was able to find solution for that elsewhere, so no worries. The issues i am having now are after this. Currently I am running chkdsk /r on the disk. It might take a while. I will try your commands after this is done. Appreciate all of your help!
    – enlightenedOne
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 5:23
  • @enlightenedOne ok.no reason to run chkdsk /r on a virtual machine. Only use chkdsk /f. If you use /r you are checking for physical defects on a fake hard drive. After all, it is just a file on your hard drive. If you have concerns about physical defects you need to run chkdsk /r on the main system. And chkdsk is not a bad idea. But you might want to run that on the original drive BEFORE conversion.
    – Appleoddity
    Commented Dec 6, 2017 at 5:44
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You're describing P2V which is common but it requires some skill particularly skills in troubleshooting boot problems since your legacy system was installed on particular hardware with particular drivers.

It is advised to have a Windows 7 Setup disk iso mounted in your VM as a bootable CD to perform a repair install of your VHD after you've captured a virtual hard drive since the HAL.DLL can halt the boot process and reinstalling in repair mode while in VM solves this problem.

After you solve HAL.dll (if you have the HAL.dll) issue, be prepared to boot into Safe Mode initially and start carving out un-necessary hardware drivers or applications since those devices and other parts of applications might not be present in your virtual machine hypervisor.

You'll find P2V rewarding and valuable, the experience you'll glean from this initial conversion might turn you into a P2V Warrior.

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  • I keep entering "Startup Repair" but it won't repair. It won't even boot up in Safe Mode - soon as the 4 dots appear that normally form the swirling Windows logo it reboots. I wish I could get rid of whatever driver is causing the problem. I have no idea how to do it though.
    – SparkyNZ
    Commented Aug 31, 2022 at 19:57
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IMO you're better off to just put the drive in a physical machine and boot it up. Windows will find a bunch of new hardware and reboot several times, and you may need to provide 3rd party drivers for some of it. If you just want to "experience" your old Windows installation, then the video driver is probably the only thing you really need to worry about. If you want to keep a pristine copy of your hard drive, just image or clone it before doing any of the above.

While it's technically possible to make it boot as a VM, it's a rather tedious process with several steps involved. Probably not worth your time.

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