How to Virtualise an Existing Windows Install using Proxmox

proxmox is a fantastic virtualization software allowing you to utilize one computer to run multiple virtual machines instead of dedicating a computer to every system you wish to run or Tinker with with virtualization it opens up the possibility of messing around with settings or operating systems you may not want to run on a dedicated machine such as pie hole home assistant or a Linux distro whilst also giving you access to quickly spin up a virtual machine to do testing or retrieve some data from an old drive like I'm going to show you how to do today by virtualizing an existing Windows 10 install but this will also work for other windows versions such as 7 8 11 and even Windows Server versions now if you haven't shut down your proxmox server and installed your windows install drive yet go ahead and do that now but not before taking note of your drive serial number which will help us a bit later then make sure your server boots back into proxmox and not into the windows install Drive next you'll need to go to the link in the description and then click here to download the latest vert i o drivers which we'll need to attach to our Windows 10 virtual machine so that we have the correct drivers for our network adapter and a few other things once the driver has been downloaded go ahead and open a browser and navigate to your proxmox install select the drive you wish to store your isos on which is usually by default your install drive then select the iso images tab here you will upload the vertio iso you just downloaded by clicking the upload button and select the file navigate to where you downloaded your vertio driver which is usually in the downloads folder by default unless you've changed it then upload the ISO once that's uploaded let's start to create the virtual machine now so select create VM in the top right make sure the correct proxbox node is selected that has the windows Drive installed in it if you have multiple in my case I only have one server so I would have selected the correct one by default set the vmid number which by default starts at 100 and increases sequentially so I would recommend just leaving it at its current default give the VM a name which I'm just going to call mine Windows 10. select the next button choose the verdio driver as the iso image you may have to change the storage location first if you didn't upload it to the default location change the type to Microsoft Windows and click next untick add EFI disk untick add TPM if your windows install came from a computer that did not have it enabled which is usually most windows installs except Windows 11 in which you will need to leave this enabled unless you modified the windows install or registry to not require a TPM module if you need to pass through any pcie devices such as a graphics card leave the machine drop down set to Q35 but if not change this to i-440fx if your windows install is a legacy install you will need to change the BIOS to see bios but if it is UEFI leave ovmf selected you can also enable guest agent on this screen if you want to monitor a few extra things on the summary page your choice once you've made it click next delete the idea volume proxboxes created by default by clicking the red trashcan symbol to the right of idea0 then click next choose how many sockets and cores you wish to dedicate to this virtual machine I only have one CPU so leave the socket at 1 and change the course to four then click next I want 8 gig of RAM so I'll double this value to 8192 to give me the 8 gigabytes that I need then click next if you want to be able to access the internet on this virtual machine just change the model setting to vertio and leave everything else as it is unless you are using vlans or on a specific Mac address you can set that here if you want to open ports to this machine I would recommend disabling the firewall as I've had issues with Port forwards working on machines with it enabled once you've finished configuring everything click next then finished now we're going to select our proxmox node the windows drive we want to virtualizers plugged into which in my case only have a single node called proxmox test then we're going to select the drives tab from the left hand side this lists all the drives currently attached to your node we need to find the specific drive with the windows install on it which in my case is a Samsung Evo 750. the next step is best to do in a notepad so go ahead and open that up and type qm space set space followed by your virtual machine number it was assigned to it during the creation process mine is a hundred but yours may be different at another space after 100 and type Dash SATA 1 space forward slash Dev forward slash disk forward slash buy Dash ID forward slash ATA Dash next you will need to type the model then an underscore then the serial number of your drive so in my case it is Samsung underscore SSD underscore 750 underscore Evo underscore 250 Gigabyte underscore s33 snw bh693788e this is case sensitive so be sure to type it exactly as it's displayed in the disks menu now you should have something that's typed out that sort of looks like this different hard drive models may show differently such as these drives in my main proxmox server for instance so don't panic if your models have different formatting now we have all that typed out go ahead and highlight it all then copy it by either right clicking and selecting copy or hitting Ctrl C select shell from the left hand side menu in proxmox right click in some empty space and select paste then hit enter if you have successfully attached your drive you'll get a message like this but if you didn't you may have mistyped a character so you might want to go back and just double check once you get the correct output message select your virtual machine then select the options tab double-click the boot order section and a menu will pop up Tick the starter one box then click and drag the three horizontal lines to the left up to the top so now the side of one drive is in the number one spot click ok then start your Virtual Machine by right-clicking the virtual machine in the left hand menu then selecting the start button if you double click on the virtual machine once it started it'll open the viewing window depending on the speed of your old drive and the hardware on your proxmox server this may take some time once it is booted and you've logged in select the file explorer From The Bottom bar or just hit windows and the E key select this PC from the left hand menu scroll to the bottom and run the vertio dash win Dash gt-x64 if your windows install is 64-bit or the x86 if your windows install was 32-bit you can also install the guest agent and RAM ballooning driver from here if you enabled either of them during the setup and that's pretty much it you now have a virtualized setup that you can enable RDP if you're using a pro version of Windows for easier access copy your data off the drive or do whatever you want really if you enjoyed this video leave a like and if you really enjoyed it please consider subscribing for more tutorials and other content in the future if you have a suggestion question or criticism leave a comment and thank you very much for watching

Channel: Everything By Sam

Views: 17,393

Keywords: amd, NVIDIA, review, tutorial, test, recommend, guide, hint, tip, trick, work, help, windows 10, ssd, how to, learn, recommendation, microsoft, sony, upgrade, windows 11, virtualise, virtualize, virtual, proxmox, vm, windows 7, mount

Id: eFDcCxRS5Xk

Length: 6min 42sec (402 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 27 2023