How do I install a disk image using Boot Camp?

February 27, 2008 11:29 AM

Can I convert/install a VMWare Fusion image onto a Boot Camp partition? Or alternatively, can I copy/install a drive image onto a Boot Camp partition?

I have a VMWare Fusion-based virtual machine with Windows XP installed in it. I would like to set up a Boot Camp partition and move the Windows environment over from my virtual machine. Can this be done? I found a solution for Parallels, but I'm not sure it's applicable to Fusion VMs.

Alternatively, can drive images be installed/copied onto a Boot Camp partition, and if so, how?

The reason I ask these questions is my workplace cannot set up my Mac with a virgin install of XP and then individually install the programs I need, but can only install a disk image. They were able to set it up using Fusion, but they don't know how to do it for Boot Camp. Thanks for any help.

posted by EatenByAGrue to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

It looks like it ought to. It basically has you boot into your VM, image the drive, then install/mirror that image onto the bootcamp partition. After that it's all repair & duct tape. In principal, it's fine. The imaging happens from within the running VM so it shouldn't matter what kind of VM you use.

Obviously, back everything up before you try it. In fact, I'd back up computers that just happen to be near by. It looks pretty involved.
posted by chairface at 1:27 PM on February 27, 2008

Acronis True Image should do it, and they have a time-limited fully-functional trial. True Image does imaging, but it also does cloning, so you should be able to cut out a lot of those steps by cloning directly from your boot disk to your Boot Camp C: drive within Fusion.
posted by kindall at 2:49 PM on February 27, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks.
posted by EatenByAGrue at 2:44 PM on February 29, 2008