Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac

Guest blog by Sylvester Sebastian Nino, Parallels Support Team

Nov 19, 2020 vdi to vhd conversion represents an export of data from VirtualBox disk format (.vdi) to Virtual Disk format (.vhd), which should be possible in several virtualization programs like VirtualBox or Parallels desktop. Convert Parallels Desktop or Workstation virtual hard disk to VirtualBox disk image. We have found 6 software records in our database eligible for.hdd to.vdi file format conversion. Several virtualization programs like VirtualBox or Parallels should be able to help you with hdd to vdi conversion. Mar 02, 2013 I have just purchased Parallels 8 Desktop for Mac as part ofa bundle of software. The Quick Start Guide explained how to import from VirtualBox by just selecting Convert Existing Virtual Machine and then opening the.vbox file and after about 5 minutes contemplation it had built Parallels equivalent with no problems.

While working with Parallels Desktop and helping our customers, I often go through our knowledgebase as the best source of product-related information. For instance, recently, I helped a customer over the phone convert his virtual machine from VirtualBox to Parallels Desktop by simply going through the steps listed in the related KB article. Everything worked as expected.

It was then, while helping the customer, that I finally noticed the views count–wow, that’s a darn popular article! I hadn’t known how interesting this question is to our customers. Now that I know, I decided to write a blog about it to make all the steps even clearer. So let’s do it! Read on for the instructions on how to convert your existing VirtualBox VM to Parallels Desktop.

I’m not going to take a lot of time to tell you why you should switch. Simply put, it’s everything. Functionality, stability and, of course, the variety of the features and cross-platform interaction. Instead, let me jump straight to the point.

Step 1

Before converting your VirtualBox to Parallels Desktop, delete the snapshots (if any) in your VirtualBox VM. Snapshots could interfere with the process of conversion. Then shut down your VM.

Step 2

Install Parallels Desktop. You will see the New Virtual Machine Wizard once it’s set up:

Step 3

Click on the Parallels Desktop icon at the top of the navigation pane and select Open from the dropdown menu. Select your VirtualBox VM—you can simply type in “.vbox” in search box.

The Parallels Wizard will now show you the expected VM name and location (which you can change) and will prompt you to click Continue.

Step 4

Now Parallels Desktop will convert your VirtualBox VM to its format.

Believe me or not, but…that’s it! Parallels Desktop will now start your VM and automatically install Parallels Tools—please don‘t interrupt this process. It has to complete on the first VM start.

As you can see, converting VirtualBox to Parallels Desktop couldn‘t be easier! I hope this post was useful, and don’t forget to follow Parallels Support on Twitter.

To migrate from VMware to VirtualBox, you first need to export the VM in an.ovf file. To do that open the VMware folder located inside the “Programs Files” folder in the C drive. Once you are there, open the “OVFTool” folder. Press “Shift + right-click,” and then select the “Open Command Prompt here” option. Dec 22, 2015 While working with Parallels Desktop and helping our customers, I often go through our knowledgebase as the best source of product-related information. For instance, recently, I helped a customer over the phone convert his virtual machine from VirtualBox to Parallels Desktop by simply going through the steps listed in the related KB article. Everything worked as expected.

Home > Search converters: vhd to vdi

Conversion of vhd file format to vdi file format ^beta

Search for vhd to vdi converter or software able to handle these file types.

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Convert Virtual Hard Disk file to VirtualBox disk image.

We have found 6 software records in our database eligible for .vhd to .vdi file format conversion.

Generally speaking, various virtualization software can usually convert different virtual disk / machines between each other. So it should not be hard to convert VHD format to VDI with programs like VirtualBox or Parallels Desktop as these should support vhd to vdi conversion just fine.

Microsoft Windows software - convert vhd to vdi on Windows

VirtualBox

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac 64-bit

A multi-platform x86 virtualization software package

The tables with software actions are a good pointer for what a certain program does with various file types and often may give users a good hint how to perform certain file conversion, for example the above-mentioned vhd to vdi. However, it is not perfect and sometimes can show results which are not really usable because of how certain programs work with files and the possible conversion is thus actually not possible at all.

Parallels Workstation

A virtualizing solution for small businesses and professionals

Apple macOS / Mac OS X software - convert vhd to vdi on OS X

VirtualBox for Mac

Free open-source x86 virtualization software package for Mac

Parallels Desktop for Mac

Mac version of the popular virtualization software

Linux/Unix software - convert vhd to vdi on Linux

VirtualBox for Linux

Free system virtualization platform for Linux operating system developed by Oracle

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Download

Parallels Workstation for Linux

Virtualizing software for Linux operating system

Additional links: Open vhd file, Open vdi file

VHD

A vhd file extension is commonly used for virtual hard drives for Microsoft Virtual Server. A vhd file contains disk image used in virtual machines. Several programs can work with .vhd files including Microsoft Virtual PC, or ISOBuster.

VDI

Files with vdi extension are disk images in VirtualBox Virtual Disk Image format. VirtualBox is free virtualization software for Windows, Mac and Unix based operating systems. Virtual Disk Image is proprietary VirtualBox container file format used to emulate physical disk that store virtualized operating system and virtualized data.

Back to conversion search

Updated: December 8, 2010

And vice versa. This is definitely something you may want to do if you happen to be a virtualization fan and you're running both VirtualBox and one of VMware products. The reasons for conversion could be many, including the need to preserve a license or a machine state, run it in different software for compatibility testing and who knows what other reasons virtualization geeks may have.

Anyhow, today, I'm going to show you two definite and one maybe ways of how you can convert your virtual hard disks in .vdi format, used by VirtualBox to .vmdk, used by VMware, and the other way around. Furthermore, you will also learn how to convert to other formats, should you fancy them, including VHD, RAW, and others. We will use tools like the VBoxManage command line utility and QEMU, and take a look at VMware Converter, which we've seen in action before. All combined, this tutorial will significantly enhance the flexibility and portability of our setup.

Conversion method 1: VBoxManage

We have used VBoxManage to clone VirtualBox disks. The method here is identical, except that we will be converting to a different disk format. Let's see how this is done.

VBoxManage clonehd source.vdi target.vmdk --format VMDK

Where source is your VirtualBox disk, target is your VMware disk and --format VMDK is the desired output format. Similarly, you can go the other way around, using VMDK as your source and VDI as your target. Make sure to specify the right disk format. VBoxManage clonehd function supports other formats as well.

See example:

Again, using an external disk for storing virtual machines can reduce the performance penalty due to massive I/O. You can read more about optimizing virtual machine usage in my virtualization tips guide.

Let it run.

Once the procedure is successfully completed, create a new virtual machine in a VMware product and use the new disk as your storage.

You have quite a bit of leeway. I have converted a VirtualBox machine that was installed on a different machine, running a quad-core Intel processor, and deployed the VMware disk on a machine equipped with a dual-core Intel processor one generation behind. VirtualBox Guest Addons were installed in the guest operating system. Moreover, I let the VMware machine use PAE extension, whereas I disabled this feature in VirtualBox. Furthermore, I changed the disk controller from IDE to SCSI in the VMware machine settings and it still worked fairly well, with only a minor inconvenience of installing new hardware drivers on the machine startup. So you have a large margin for error and can be flexible about your conversions.

As to which machines and software I used ..

The so-called source host was my newest HP Pavilion dv6-2130ej laptop with the i5 processor, running Ubuntu 10.04. The target host was my somewhat older but still new and powerful LG RD510 laptop, with the Core 2 Duo P7450 processor, also running Ubuntu 10.04 and equipped with both VirtualBox and the spectacular VMware Workstation.

P.S., on a side note, the Workstation installed flawlessly on Lucid Lynx, even more smoothly than it did on openSUSE 11.2. Compared to the fairly complex and difficult VMware Server setup on Ubuntu, this is an extremely impressive result.

The Workstation (and possibly other products) may ask you to convert the virtual machine to the latest version of the VMware series. You can accept this, but you should not if you intend to use it with older products.

Let us see what gives.

Notice the same serial number. Likewise, pay attention to the PAE featured used in the converted copy of the virtual machine.

Please note that if your virtual machines are running Windows, you will need to make sure you have enough licenses to run the several instances of the operating system in parallel. You are probably good for the few seconds of testing, but each virtual machine requires its own license. You may also need to reactive your installation.

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Os

Vice versa

Oh, yes, the other direction is fairly simple.

VBoxManage clonehd source.vmdk target.vdi --format VDI

And that's it.

Conversion method 2: QEMU

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Os

QEMU is an old friend, too. We've seen in my very first article on virtualization, when I was still young and naive. Strike that, I was never young. We have also used QEMU to convert VMDK disks to RAW format, so we could use them with Amazon EC2 machines. The concept is exactly the same here. And it works both ways.

VDI to VMDK

It's extremely simple.

qemu-img convert something.vdi -O vmdk something.vmdk

VMDK to VDI

You have two ways to do this. Use a one-step qemu-img-vdi tool or go about using classic qemu-img, which will require an intermediate conversion to raw format.

qemu-img-vdi

Pretty much like all other conversions we've seen before:

qemu-img-vdi convert something.vmdk -O vdi something.vdi

qemu-img

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Download

Now, using qemu-img, you have two steps, first convert to RAW format, then use VBoxManage to convert to VDI. Older versions of VirtualBox used the tool called vditool, so you may find online resources that reference this utility.

Step 1: Convert VMDK to RAW (you don't need any file extension, btw)

qemu-img convert something.vmdk something.raw

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac X

Step 2: Convert RAW to VDI

VBoxManage convertdd something.raw something.vdi

Note: If you're using sparse disks, as we've seen in other tutorials, the raw file will them inflated to their intended max. size. A 20GB disk, even though if only 2.4GB are used, will become a 20GB byte-by-byte file on your hard disk.

That would be all. Next, please!

Conversion method 3 (maybe): VMware Converter

To the best of my knowledge, and I've already stated in the past, it does not seem that VMware Converter supports VirtualBox. Therefore, using VMware Converter may or may not work.

Now, you can try a different method. Export your VirtualBox machine as an appliance, which will save it in the .ovf format, including a ready VMDK disk. Then, convert the appliance using VMware Converter. There's no guarantee, though. I have read a few forum threads here and there where various users claimed to have done it successfully, so it indeed may be possible.

I have not managed this yet, so keep this in mind!

Another options is to use other tools to convert to VMDK, then use VMware Converter for additional conversions, including ESXi disks. Therefore, even if you cannot use the Converter directly, you can later benefit by using it.

General tips

Although you can be pretty flexible with your conversions, you should take into account that VMware and VirtualBox support things a little differently. So it is possible that some conversion may fail if you have special stuff enabled, like multi-processors, video acceleration and other cool things.

Therefore, if your conversions are not successful, consider doing the following:

• If your disks are split into multiple files, merge them into one.
• Disable any video acceleration or special features.
• Delete snapshots.
• Uninstall VMware Tools and/or Guest Additions.
• Try to match the virtual machine settings between the source and destination.

This is more important for Windows than Linux. Once again, I must remind you that you could have licensing issues if you're using proprietary software. Make sure that you do not invalidate your products by the virtual machine migration.

More reading

For a whole library full of tutorials, guides, howtos, tips and tricks on virtualization, feel free to click on any of the links below, preferably all.

Conclusion

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Windows 7

There you go, another fine, complete tutorial baked. Today, you have learned another useful lesson, which gives you yet more freedom and flexibility when working with virtualization products. You can now convert your virtual machines back and forth between products and migrate them between machines as you see fit. You have no less than two proven methods and maybe a third to let you do the conversions. Best yet, you are not limited to just VDI and VMDK formats. I hope you liked it, enjoy!

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Free

P.S. Teaser image at the top of the page taken from Wikipedia, in public domain.

Dedoimedo out.

Converting Virtualbox .vdi File To Parallels Workstation 9 For Mac Pro

Cheers.