Virtualization

Virtualbox forum user "mpack" has created another great tool which provides the following features:

• Reads VDI,VHD,VMDK or RAW, writes VDI.
• A simple GUI Interface.
• A CLI interface too (for people who like that kind of thing!)
• Ability to discard unused blocks from the clone (no need to run SDelete/zerofree first).
• Ability to enlarge the maximum size of a virtual disk.
• User choice to either keep the old UUID or generate a new one for the clone.
• Some useful diagnostics about the source VDI, such as the partition map and the internal fileystem.
• Better feedback while cloning: a progress bar and an estimated time to completion.
• It seems to be significantly faster than "VBoxManage clonehd".
• Open source.

Link to latest version of the tool: http://forums.virtualbox.org/download/file.php?id=4671
Link to the forum: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22422

The Windows Sysinternals group at Microsoft has released Disk2vhd that is a free physical to virtual converter. Disk2vhd allows you to create VHD (virtual hard dive) files from physical drives on your computer while your system is online.

The VHD files generated can be used in Microsoft Virtual PC or on Hyper-V server or VMWare or VirtualBox.

More info also available at: http://www.tweakwin7.com/articles/40123/convert-physical-machines-to-virtual-with-disk2vhd/

Snapshot commands explained:
1) REVERT TO CURRENT SNAPSHOT (Ctrl+Shift+R)

This will discard changes in the "Current State" and go back to how the machine was in the LAST = MOST RECENT snapshot we've done, that is DAY 2.

2) DISCARD CURRENT SNAPSHOT AND STATE (Ctrl+Shift+B)

This will discard changes in the "Current State" AND in "LAST = MOST RECENT snapshot" we've done, that is DAY 2 and it will go back to how it was on DAY 1.

3) DISCARD SNAPSHOT (Ctrl + Shift + D)

Whether you run Windows or Linux, whether you want to make an existing distro USB bootable or some of the nice little tools and system utilities, UNetbootin is the tool you want !

From their site: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Introduction

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.