Location:The Outside of the Asylum (gate is closed)
Italy
Posted 12 August 2016 - 10:05 AM
What you are trying to do is called in jargon P2V (Physical To Virtual).
There are several tools suitable for the "migration", but it depends specifically on which OS is on the hard disk and which specific Virtual Machine you wish to migrate to (and on the actual OS that will be hosting the Virtual Machine).
The procedure is NOT "forensic sound" (if this is a requisite) and NOT (I repeat NOT) suited for data recovery as in the migration process a number of files will be overwritten or modified and some new files will need to be written, AND the procedure is NOT easily reversible (i.e. should you in the future find a similar laptop - a working one - and wished to re-use the hard disk, it won't likely boot anymore on it).
Post some details, even without being verbose, the more info you provide the more likely it is that a proper method/procedure/tool will be suggested.
Location:The Outside of the Asylum (gate is closed)
Italy
Posted 12 August 2016 - 01:17 PM
Well, still in jargon, we highly specialized technicians call the process of ruining a perfectly good Windows 7 by overwriting it with the crappy Windows 10 "downgrading".
More seriously, the issue here might be with the Windows 10 activation, that is normally tied to the hardware, and it has to be seen if the good MS guys will allow a reactivation, see:
and of course besides not existing actual verified answers to the issue, likely they may greatly vary depending on the specific version of Windows 7 originally installed on the laptop, and of the "upgrade" to Windows 10, the procedure used, etc., you can only try and see what happens.
Which Virtual Machine do you plan to use?
Which OS is running on the PC on which you will install the Virtual Machine?
I for one would simply try it. Create the image you spoke of without modifying the base OS, put the HDD in a USB to SATA adapter and image it there from another running PC. Macrium and AOMEI both have backup softwre that is free, and cheap for the paid versions, well worth the investment.
P2V does work, however it usually requires a running OS to do it FROM, that is the running OS has to have the P2V software on the booted OS disk to squirt the resultant virtual disk file from, with your laptop dead this does not seem to be an option.
I would select a virtualization platform, say Virtualbox, get it running, then setup a VM and use the backup image you created and get that image onto the VMs virtual disk. Boot it and cross your fingers. I've done it, and failed more often than not, but have had it work a few times. This too requires you to have some sort of rescue media to boot the VM to initially in order to apply the image to the VMs virtual disk. You need to create this when installing the backup software.
How to restore system from one computer to other one with AOMEI Universal Restore?
Move Windows 10 to a new system without reinstalling?
How to Do Dissimilar Hardware Restore with AOMEI Backupper?
AOMEI Dissimilar Hardware/Universal Restore feature allows you to restore a system image backup created on one computer to another with different hardware. With all the preparations completed, the steps for dissimilar hardware restore are easy and straightforward. AOMEI Backupper supports any version of Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012.
Before you do:
Make sure you have prepared a system image backup and know where it is saved. If not, please create a system image. We suggest you to save the system image to a NAS/network, which will be very convenient for restoration and cost-saving when restoring multiple computers. An external hard drive, a CD/DVD, or an USB flash drive is also available.
To perform dissimilar hardware restore, firstly you need to start up destination computers. AOMEI Backupper integrates PXE Boot Tool, which allows you to simultaneously start up multiple client computers within LAN through the network booting. If you wouldn’t like to use PXE network booting, please make a bootable CD or USB in advance.
With all the preparations completed, the steps for dissimilar hardware restore are easy and straightforward.
Step 1: Start up destination computers. As mentioned above, there are two ways to boot destination computers for system restore. One is PXE network booting, the other is bootable media. No matter which way you choose, the dissimilar hardware restore process is same. Here take PXE network booting for example.
Step 2: Find a system image. After the destination computers boot into recovery environment (here is Windows PE), AOMEI Backupper will pop up automatically. Then, click "Restore" tab -> Path "Browse a path to select…" to find the system image you created.
In this example, the system image is stored on NAS/network. Click "Share/NAS" and input the necessary information. At last, click "OK" to continue.
Step 3: Choose a backup point and click "Next".
Step 4: Select a destination location to restore system image and click "Next".
Step 5: Now you can preview the restore operation. There are three options in the lower left corner. The "Universal Restore" option is ticked by default. Do not un-tick it if you restore a system image to dissimilar hardware. Click "Start Restore" to perform dissimilar hardware restore.
Note:
Some drivers, such as video/sound card drivers, NIC drivers, display driver etc, are not installed by AOMEI Universal Restore, as they doesn’t affect system startup and can be installed manually in Windows after the successful restore.
When you finish restoring a Windows system installation to a computer with different hardware, Microsoft Windows and third-party software may ask you to reactivate or even input a second registration code. It is a good practice for you to be well aware of your software vendor’s license agreement in advance.
Location:The Outside of the Asylum (gate is closed)
Italy
Posted 14 August 2016 - 10:40 AM
@THeHive
Which part of "dead laptop" you failed to notice?
That AOMEI backupper will have probably some difficulties in creating the system image on it. as Rootman hinted:
P2V does work, however it usually requires a running OS to do it FROM, that is the running OS has to have the P2V software on the booted OS disk to squirt the resultant virtual disk file from, with your laptop dead this does not seem to be an option.
I am interested in this topic since I have also a good working laptop hdd with a dead not working laptop. Let's talk about the hardware part: probably the laptop has an interface or SATA 2.5 inch which might only work on a laptop or with an adapter.
I currently use to replace the hdds, boot an easy2boot usb with linux live image, copy the needed files either to the usb, usb hdd or any medium and replace the hdds back.
Probably the old hdd with windows wouldn't boot because of different platform, cpu, motherboard depending of windows version, mbr vs uefi etc but I didn't tried it since I don't need it and I wanted to keep the forensic state of the hdd.
For that solution to work, it would need the hdd to be connected to a laptop, have another medium like usb hdd to store the image then try to fix the image and make it universal to boot in virtualbox.
In conclusion Wonko is right: post all the info.
There are a number of parameters such as mbr vs gpt, laptop specs, single core vs multicore, x86 vs x64 and not (last) windows activation genuine and "bios included activation keys" which can and will make you result vary if applied different times.
So you see that posting more details wouldn't do any harm.