How to Virtualise an Existing Windows Install using Proxmox

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I have been messing around with Promox for over a year now and thought I would share a helpful tutorial on how to virtualise an old existing Windows install you might want to recover data from.
VirtIO Drivers:
pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_...
CMD to mount SATA drives to VM (-sata can be interchanged with -scsi):
qm set "VM ID" -sata1 /dev/disk/by-id/ata-"MODEL"_"SN"
CMD to mount NVMe drives to VM (-sata can be interchanged with -scsi):
qm set "VM ID" -sata1 /dev/disk/by-id/nvme-"MODEL"_"SN"
Run the virtio-win-gt-x64 installer for 64-bit or -x86 for 32-bit. You can unmount this drive from the hardware tab once you have installed the drivers.
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25 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 75

9 месяцев назад

Great job!! And to think that the whole time I was trying to copy the operating systems into Proxmox without knowing this simpler solution. Thank you very much!

@user-uu7zf9fr5t 8 месяцев назад

Gotta say thanks x1000 man, you saved me from having to buy another hard drive, clone it with clone Zilla, uploading the iso to proxmox then trying to run it like that. Now I didn’t even have to buy a hard drive or extra anything. Thanks!

@XUB4 4 месяца назад

Thakns dude, I've been searching for it for a long time and you explained it almost perfectly. Huge props to You!!

@ivaltierrez 8 месяцев назад

Hi, I rarely leave any comments on videos. But, I have to say. Your video rocks! Extremely helpful. I followed it step by step and I got it to work. Amazing! It saved me a lot of time given that I was thinking of creating a backup and go from there. Thank you so much! Please keep up the good work. Subscribed!!!!

@EverythingbySam 8 месяцев назад

Hello! Firstly, thank you, I appreciate the feedback. I do always wonder if I am being clear and informative in all my videos and like to hear when people manage to successfully implement whatever I am trying to teach.

@pkillboredom 5 месяцев назад

Thank you for this! Short and clear tutorial.

@JARVIS1187 Год назад

Thanks so much! I am planning to do the exact same thing in the near future with my home-server installation of Windows Server 2022.

@Jwalk9000 10 месяцев назад

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR HOW TO DO THIS FOR MONTHS!!! THANK YOU!!

@EverythingbySam 10 месяцев назад

That was my exact situation about a year ago, it is why I made this tutorial.

@paologucci225 Год назад

i was thinking you were gonna convert the windows install to a virtual image for proxmox. But this tuto is also good, just not what i was looking for. Nice Job

@EverythingbySam Год назад

You could create a backup of the virtual machine then restore it to a different drive if that is what you want to achieve.

@MichaelMantion 3 месяца назад

@@EverythingbySam Do you have a video showing how to make a backup and restoring to a different drive? would be useful. Im sure I could figure it out but lots of people would likely do this.

@EverythingbySam 3 месяца назад

@@MichaelMantion I will consider making it as a couple of people have asked. I have just been really busy lately so it might take a while.

@monoham1 3 месяца назад

@@EverythingbySam Please make this or at least leave instructions! following this video and substituting the physical drive for a qcow conversion from a VHDx backup only gets you to the recovery screen and I'm not sure where to go from there! specifically you get "INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE" then you do windows repair and change the devices in that blue and black DOS screen

@JaredTilston 7 месяцев назад

Great, refreshing content. Thanks for your time. Subscribed

@Darkk6969 Год назад

That's pretty cool. Nice thing about this setup is you can do a backup. And then restore to a different server's storage so you can remove the SSD.

@EverythingbySam Год назад

Yup, it also gives you the flexibility for you to clone the drive to a bigger drive if you run out of space then pass that back through like nothing changed really.

@zhyere 2 месяца назад

Awesome video..this was a great help. I was thinking about copying the entire hard drive and converting it or something crazy..but I knew there was an easier way..thanks.

@EverythingbySam 2 месяца назад

You can also snapshot backup the drive and restore it to one of your other drives if you want to move it off your original drive

@raysutton2310 4 месяца назад

Massive Thank You!!! I've tried about 5 or 6 different ways to convert a physical Windows 10 to a Proxmox VM over the past week and this was the only way that resulted in a bootable machine that didn't crap out on a sytem repair. Rather than assembling the disk by-id path yourself, you can in the shell use "ls /dev/disk/by-id" find the 'root' entry (ends with the serial number) and cut/past the ID from there. In my case it was nvme-... rather than ata-... which caused some initial confusion.

@EverythingbySam 4 месяца назад

I do have the NVMe syntax listed in the description although it’s probably not that obvious sorry.

@raysutton2310 4 месяца назад

@@EverythingbySam no problem, I got everything working including GPU and USB port passthrough for my 4K HDMI KVM switch, shows up fine in Windows (attached VNC console to check) with the correct vendor/product ID but have been totally unable to get it to work in Windows. Its there showing all the correct HID devices but when I switch to the dedicated KVM channel I have video but no KBD/Mouse. Pondering next steps but may have to give up & use RDP.

@amzadhosein1017 Месяц назад

Thank you!!!! I used this tutorial, and had a couple of things that weren't like in your video: 1. My disk by id script just WOULD NOT WORK. I figured it was the id itself so I used "ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/" to find my disk id (ignoring partition) and the issue was it was "nvme" instead of "ata". 2. The UEFI did not boot, but changing to Default (SeaBIOS) worked I'm actually mid-way through the instructions, but so far my windows machine has booted, so I'm happy :). THANKS!

@EverythingbySam Месяц назад

The NVME script is in the description but I probably should have mentioned it sorry.

@kennethvanallen4492 9 месяцев назад

Succinct and on point. Thank you.

@ZetaRidge7 Год назад

Welcome back :)

@EverythingbySam Год назад

Thanks mate! I appreciate the support.

@lunarmagicexpress7231 5 дней назад

thank you for the help!

@jeffbaker4219 Год назад

Glad I came across this! Just sub'd thanks!!

@EverythingbySam Год назад

Thanks mate, I appreciate it!

@Warrorar 7 месяцев назад

Great Guide, but small not: If the drive is an nvme drive, it does not start with "ata-", but with "nvme-" which can also be checked easily by going to the shell and cd into /dev/disks/by-id/ Other than that, amazing Guide! You helped me get into Proxmox :)

@EverythingbySam 7 месяцев назад

I have that listed in the description

@Warrorar 7 месяцев назад

. @EverythingbySam damn, i'm so sorry, your video was so straight forward that i was not even in need of the description. I appologize.

@EverythingbySam 7 месяцев назад

@@Warrorar It’s all good mate. As long as your comment has the correct information (which it did of course) there is nothing wrong with restating something as it may help someone in the future.

@Godalor 3 месяца назад

Wonderful video, exactly what I wanted, thanks! Just one thing: if I want to import multiple Nvmes or SATA Devices, do I need to -scsi2 or -sata2 for the second ones or is the -sata1 argument are regular term? In my mind it's the denomination that the VM config uses for the device and needs -sata1, -sata2, -sata3 for further devices... am I right?

@EverythingbySam 3 месяца назад

Yup that’s correct, just increase the number for each additional drive otherwise you will mount the new drive over the top of the exisiting drive if you use the same number.

@BorisZech 10 месяцев назад

Thank you for this concise explanation. One question: why don't you install the VirtIO drivers in the natively booted Windows before virtualising it? Would Windows crash if it had these drivers installed without running in a VM?

@EverythingbySam 10 месяцев назад

That should work doing it that way as well but if you don’t have a spare PC to run up the Windows install this is easier. The scenario I was working from when writing this is you only have the Windows drive.

@BorisZech 10 месяцев назад

@@EverythingbySam OK, I did it your way. Afterwards I could still boot Windows natively so it should work from the start.

@fbarnea 10 месяцев назад

I have a pc with a single ssd. I want to go from Windows 11 to Proxmox and vm with windows 11. I only have an external hard drive as additional storage. How can I achieve this? Do i need to buy another ssd and install proxmox on that one?

@EverythingbySam 10 месяцев назад

Yes, that is the easiest way.

@AnTicXz Месяц назад

any way to set the EFi partition from the drive to the EFI devices in the VM? maybe this isn't necessary but It is giving a warning

@EverythingbySam Месяц назад

It will throw up a warning upon each boot but it’s not an issue.

@grokit 2 месяца назад

Once I have added my Win10 the way you describe, is there an easy way to move over the disk on the proxmox disks and remove the original wi dows disk afterwards?

@EverythingbySam 2 месяца назад

Yep, take a snapshot backup and restore it as a different VM number. Then delete the original VM and remove the physical drive.

@grokit 2 месяца назад

@@EverythingbySam elegant... I will try that! Thanks.

@LeMatt87n 7 месяцев назад

hi noob here, do I need a separate physical drive for each VM?

@EverythingbySam 7 месяцев назад

No, you can partition a small amount of your main Proxmox install drive or a secondary drive to each VM you want to create.

@tmaris 11 месяцев назад

Great tutorial. Seems so easy. I have a windows 10 pro machine running docker with a dozen containers or so with plex/jellyfin tailscale etc. Was looking for an easy way to convert that bare metal machine to proxmox vm as I don't want to re-setup all my configs. I've got also some external drives which I share through samba. Can that work in the VM?

@EverythingbySam 11 месяцев назад

Yup, just connect them to your bare metal Proxmox system then pass them through to your Windows install VM with the commands I listed. I personally would split the Docker containers away from the Windows install and move it to a Linux OS purely due to the amount of issues that randomly arise with Windows based system such as failed Windows update.

@tmaris 11 месяцев назад

@@EverythingbySam I haven't found an easy way to migrate my docker containers from my windows machine to a Linux environment. I think it will take me weeks to manually rebuild them and I'm trying to avoid that.

@EverythingbySam 11 месяцев назад

@@tmaris copy Docker data to network share, attach network share to Linux environment, copy data to new location on Linux, recreate Docker containers. You could install Portainer then export and import via the GUI.

@tmaris 11 месяцев назад

@@EverythingbySam Thanks! Will try it out.

@wraithers10 4 месяца назад

Thanks so much for asking this question, as I'm in very similar position, and to @EverythingbySam for responding. Were you able to get the external (Samba) shares working? How about Plex with hardware encoding/decoding for multiple remote streams? Any notes on how existing opened ports / port forwards are managed? Do I just set them up again in the Proxmox OS and then pass that on to the Windows 10 VM? Related question: I have 5 internal & external HDDs connected via SATA & USB, respectively, that I would want to connect to my W10 VM. Is the process similar to what was shown in the video, and can they be mapped to their existing drive letters to avoid rescanning media for Plex & other apps?

@poradnanet2005 7 месяцев назад

Can be this virtualizeed system moved on virtual disk for fully virtualization? This is good hint but in this case is I`m still depended on physical disk. The main magic of virtualization is in hoping between nodes and independence from "iron".

@EverythingbySam 7 месяцев назад

Take a snapshot backup of the VM and restore it to your main drive then you can delete the exisiting VM and remove the drive.

@poradnanet2005 7 месяцев назад

@@EverythingbySam I`ve tried it and it`s works.I had to change some details (bios, network card, graphic...etc) but my old system (win7) wa fully virtualized. I`m going to try virtualized Win 2019 server at customer side now.

@EverythingbySam 7 месяцев назад

@@poradnanet2005 congratulations mate, glad it all worked out. I have personally used the snapshot restore multiple times to move old installs from their original drive to a virtual partition.

@poradnanet2005 7 месяцев назад

@@EverythingbySam Interesting idea use snapshots instead of windows backup.I have FreeNAS as personal NAS at home but I can change it to Proxmox because I`m using Proxmox as primary virtual platform at customers. Thanks for this video..it was new for me.

@Thebengtify 3 месяца назад

Hi, beautiful video! I´m new to proxmox and instead of dual boot all the time. Kan I passthrough my IGPU to this windows install drive in Proxmox? Thanks!

@EverythingbySam 3 месяца назад

No you cannot passthrough your entire IGPU, only additional graphics cards. The virtual machine will utilise a portion of your IGPU by default for graphics though.

@Thebengtify 3 месяца назад

Ok, I understand. Hopefully it will be enough during the time it takes me to understand how to set up an LXC container for plex 🙂 Thanks for the reply!

@EverythingbySam 3 месяца назад

Run an Ubuntu VM with Plex and Jellyfin like I have so you can pass a GPU through later if you want or you could install docker on the Ubuntu VM and run them in containers. Bit more flexible in my opinion.

@emilianosteinvorth7017 Год назад

Could this work to transfer a windows key to proxmox?

@EverythingbySam Год назад

This method basically wipes out your Windows key as unfortunately detects a new motherboard. You might have luck using your exisiting key to re-activate it but there is no guarantee.

@generalrodcocker1018 11 месяцев назад

so, there is no application to run on my installed os like vmware has to make a virtual machine?

@EverythingbySam 11 месяцев назад

You need the Virtio driver for a few things but essentially you are just passing the drive through to a VM which a couple of resources configured. If you wanted to do away with the drive entirely you could take a backup of the VM using Proxmox’s backup tools then restore the VM to your main drive or a different drive.

@generalrodcocker1018 11 месяцев назад

would you recommend someting like disk2vhd?@@EverythingbySam

@PiscesDangYeu 8 месяцев назад

in your solution snapshot function It's available?

@EverythingbySam 8 месяцев назад

Yes you can take a backup of the virtual machine using the snapshot function and restore it to a different drive if you would like.

@mariabjrkb.skaftadottir8669 7 месяцев назад

how do i add the other drives with my stuff on them to the new vm?

@EverythingbySam 7 месяцев назад

Exact same command but change the SATA1 portion to SATA2 and so on for each drive

@mariabjrkb.skaftadottir8669 7 месяцев назад

thanks for answer, i think i asked the wrong question, but i figured it out, thanks for answer :D@@EverythingbySam

@Spoolingturbo6 4 месяца назад

ERROR (too many arguments) ProTip If your drive has a space between letters, replace with an underscore _ *SO: qm set 105 -sata1 /dev/disk/by-id/nvme-WDC PC SN730 SDBQNTY-XXX-XXX *Should be : qm set 105 -sata1 /dev/disk/by-id/nvme-WDC_PC_SN730_SDBQNTY-XXX-XXX Just thought I'd throw that out there.