I just installed VirtualBox on my machine. I have 64G RAM, and plenty of disk space.
Currently, I have a hard drive in my machine that has a copy of Windows 10 on it so I can dual boot to Windows if I want. I’d like to remove that drive and put Windows on or in VirtualBox. Is there a way to create an ISO image of the current Windows drive so I can move it, and all the programs currently installed, to VirtualBox? If so, How would I do it? More to the point, Should I do it?
Bart
you have to convert the hard drive to a virtualbox image
VBoxManage convertfromraw /dev/sda Windows10.vdi --format VDI
Change sda to the windows drive letter - change Windows10.vdi to include the path to where you want it.
You might want to resize the Window 10 directory to a smaller size before you make the VDI (virtual Disk Image). I recommend the used size + 20% for updates.
Well, that looks easy! Thanks for your reply!
I’ll be doing this from the openSUSE side though. And, Windows is actually on sda so shouldn’t I leave the /dev/sda parameter that way?
Understand about the destination path.
And, Windows is currently on a 250G drive and has quite a lot of available space. You’re saying I should shrink it to used space + 20%
Do I do an install with the VDI file, or just place it in the Vbox directory?
Bart
you will use up 250 gb of your new drive if you do not shrink the NTFS windows directory.
Install the VirtualBox extention pack to allow passing the USB ports
Create the VDI 1st
created a windows virtual machine - select windows 10, add at least 4gb to the memory. I select all the acceleration options and at least 2 cpu’s.
when it asks for the disk choose the one you just created.
here is my (run as root) add VirtualBox extension script - run it with no VirtualBox running. (sudo sh addvbext.sh) you have to run this every time they update VirtualBox.
there was an issue a few months ago where if you had virtualbox installed, it added the realtime kernel that cause virtualbox issues, to fix that issue i locked out those items (zypper al kernel-preempt virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-kmp-preempt )
cat addvbext.sh
vbv=`/usr/bin/VBoxManage --version | tr "r" "_"`
# echo $vbv
# echo $vbn
# echo $vbwc
if ! -d "/tmpx" ]
then
echo make tmpx
mkdir /tmpx
chmod 777 /tmpx
fi
echo update VirtualBox
VBOX_VERSION=`/usr/bin/VBoxManage --version | awk -F_ {'print $1'}`
VBOX_EXT_VERSION=`/usr/bin/VBoxManage --version | awk -F_ {'print $1'}`
# echo Virtualbox version installed is $VBOX_VERSION and $VBOX_EXT_VERSION
VBOX_EXT=`echo Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-${VBOX_EXT_VERSION}.vbox-extpack`
# echo File is $VBOX_EXT
cd /tmpx
/usr/bin/wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/$VBOX_VERSION/$VBOX_EXT
echo y | /usr/bin/VBoxManage extpack install --replace $VBOX_EXT
rm -f $VBOX_EXT
You will also need wine and clonevdi to manage the virtual machines.
Wine is from OpenSUSE and clonevdi is from the VirtualBox forum.
It is used to compress the VDI to free space. make sure to keep the id and rename the original to .sav and the clone to the original name, it it works - you delete the .sav.
Hi
No thoughts of using the native OSS tools for virtualization? If interested suggest a search on “libvirt+use existing hdd install of windows”
As a test on whichever you go with, perhaps a test install of Windows 11 (or 10), enable tpm 2.0 and secure boot in the virtual machine and should be good to go, then will get an idea of performance, not sure how many cores you have available…
Well, this looks like I tried to bite off more than I’m willing to chew! 
I’ve always tried to avoid wine, and having to install programs from non suse repositories, gives me pause.
I really don’t have an actual need to have windows available inside of my linux system, it gets booted perhaps once every two or thee months, and then mainly to move downloads from itunes and to keep it updated. Microsoft says my processor (intel 8 core 5960X) is not able to run win 11 and there’s no way I’m going to scrap a $1000 processor just to run windows. I don’t need another version of linux and if I change my mind, I’ll just add another drive and triple boot.
So, I’m going to uninstall VirtualBox and dual boot.
Thanks all, for your informative replys.
Bart
Hi
Fire up libvirtd and virt-manager and install windows 11 in a virtual machine? It will work since you can set the requirements…
I went ahead and uninstalled VirtualBox and rebooted as the kernel got changed.
I installed ovmf and rebooted again. This time I had no keyboard or mouse! So, I logged in on tty1 and uninstalled it.
I’m going to put this on the back burner for now anyway. I’m investigating using pfsense and I thing that’ll keep me out of trouble for a while. 
Bart
I’m happy, and sad, to report I have virtual box running just fine on my computer. The problem I had was a setting in my bios. It said vt-x was enabled. I checked twice. Then, way down at the bottom of the page, it said Virtualization was not enabled. ??? Still haven’t figured that out.
So I installed a copy of ubuntu (which has a pretty fool proof installation) and it worked well. I then tried installing kali Linux and that went well. I then started investigating the real reason for all of this, installing Win 10. I understand it is possible, but what a mess it seems to be. The copy of windows I have is the pro version. I bought the pro version because it’s licensed to me, not a specific computer, or hard drive, or video card, or, or, or… But, it came as Windows 8. Microsoft graciously updated it to version 10. And version 10 want’s to call home and verify the license each time it boots. So, if I install it in VirtualBox, and register it again, I won’t be able to boot if natively or in other words I’d have to jump through their hoops each time I ran it. Then… it’s only good for another couple of years as MS says my 8 core, 3G Intel 5960X processor isn’t up to the job of running 11! Imagine that! In a couple of years, it’ll be goodbye MS. Completely.
And that’s a good thing. I actually find it quite humorous that I went through all of this and then decided it wasn’t worth it. But! I learned a lot, and that’s a good thing.
Again, thanks all for your help.
Bart
Hi
No issues with WinXI Pro in kvm/libvirt it’s happy to use the system WinX Pro license. Can you select TPM 2.0 in VirtualBox, if so you should be fine…
The requirements for Win11 are reduced when running as a virtual machine. I am running it under VirtualBox and there is no TPM 2.0 and the processor does not make the cut but it all still works. This isn’t a leaked version, it’s the developer preview.