Mac OS X P2V #
Paragon Virtualization Manager for Mac OS X is a free P2V (physical to virtual) converter for Leopard and Snow Leopard (do not install under Mavericks - it will render the system unbootable (though booting into Safe Mode and running the uninstaller will fix the problem)). Images can be created for Fusion 3+, Parallels 5+, and VirtualBox 4+.
Paragon's disclaimer reflects the confusion around OS X 10.5 and 10.6's EULA: "Please make sure that you do not violate the licensing agreement of your operating system and other installed software by virtualizing your system." Injunctions like these were not a problem for Steve apparently.
- Before converting, copy /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist to /System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist; now you've got a server version according to About This Mac and the login screen (reminiscent of NT 3.51's ProductType registry setting discovered by Mark Russinovich).
- If the previous step is skipped, Fusion will return "The guest operating system is not Mac OS X Server. This virtual machine will power off." when attempting to boot. All is not lost however, as another free Paragon tool, Paragon Virtual Disk Mounter Beta, can mount VMDK (as well as VDI, VHD, pVHD, and VHDX) images for editing.
- If the image was created under a different user account, you may need to change ownership and permissions of the VMDK file before importing; BatChmod makes it easy.
- To import the VMDK file, create a custom virtual machine, choose your OS X version, select "Use an existing virtual disk", and navigate to your file.
- Before booting the virtual machine, comment out or delete the line firmware = "efi" in /Users/username/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/imagename.vmwarevm/imagename.vmx, otherwise it won't boot.
- If, instead of copying SystemVersion.plist to ServerVersion.plist, you created an empty ServerVersion.plist file as suggested elsewhere, VMWare Tools (among other apps) will not install ("VMWare Tools can't be installed on this disk. VMWare Tools requires Mac OS X version 10.5 or higher.")
- Arnim van Lieshout (employed by VMWare but acting in a private capacity) kindly explained how to install the non-server version of Snow Leopard into a new Fusion virtual machine.
- See also Installing Snow Leopard OS X 10.6.3 via retail DVD into VMWare Fusion 8 as a guest OS.
/mac | Oct 24, 2011
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