My company just re-did its entire network from scratch with a new Windows SBS 2011 Server and all new Windows 7 Enterprise machines. However, I have a pathetically old XP machine with a special program on it - that is required to operate an instrument. The program doesn't work under Windows 7 and I don't have an install because the company that makes it is no longer in business. So I want to "virtualize" the machine because that PC may die any day now. We can't replace the Instrument, because even though we ordered a replacement from a different company - it's going to take them 18 months to build it. So I need to keep this machine for 18 months.
However I wanted to make a test run, so I took the hard-drive out of a Windows 7 x64 machine I have, connected it to my laptop and used disk2vhd to image it making sure to include the system reserved partition.
However, the machine BSOD's and reboots without making a dump and it's so fast I can't read it or get a snapshot of it. So I boot the VM into Hiren's and try to do a startup restore but it doesn't fix it. When I boot the machine it BSODS and reboots back into "Windows did not start Correctly"
I'm assuming it's a driver issue, but I can't clone the hardware on the VM - or can I? Is there a way to make Windows forget its hardware profile.
This is only a test, but I don't know if a Windows XP machine will act the same way. However, I'm not touching the XP machine until I have a work around.