Free tool creates virtual images that work with Microsoft Virtual PC and Hyper-V Microsoft recently updated the Sysinternals Suite of applications with a new component designed to help users create a virtual hard disk (VHD) version of their physical disks.The new physical-to-virtual (P2V) hard disk tool, Disk2VHD 1.0, was developed by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. Windows users will recognize these names as creators of some of the more useful tools found in any Windows administrator’s toolkit. Over the years, I’ve personally used my share of BgInfo, NewSid, Process Monitor, and DiskMon, to name a few, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the Sysinternals Suite get updated with a P2V tool. When Microsoft acquired the Sysinternals freebie gurus some three years ago, folks were worried that it was the end for these free, cool utilities — not so.[ Keep up with the latest virtualization news with InfoWorld’s virtualization newsletter and visit the InfoWorld Virtualization Topic Center for news, blogs, essentials, and information about InfoWorld virtualization events. ] The Disk2VHD utility gets executed on a Windows machine and creates a virtual hard disk image of the physical disks that are attached; users just have to specify the volumes for which they want the data included. That information is then exported into one or more VHDs that can be added to a new or existing Microsoft Hyper-V or Virtual PC virtual machine.Under the covers, Disk2VHD creates a consistent point-in-time volume snapshot by leveraging the Windows Volume Snapshot (VSS) capability, but because of that, some versions of Windows will not be supported. If you are using a Windows client or server operating system prior to Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003, you are out of luck.According to Russinovich and Cogswell, users can make use of the VHDs created by Disk2VHD by creating a VM with the desired characteristics needed, then adding the VHDs to the virtual machine’s configuration as IDE disks. Upon first boot, a VM booting a captured copy of Windows will detect the virtual machine’s hardware and automatically install the necessary drivers as long as they are present in the image. If not, users can install them via the Virtual PC or Hyper-V integration components, and users can attach to these VHDs using the Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Disk Management or Diskpart utilities. To get started converting your physical disks to VHD format, download the free Disk2VHD 1.0 utility from Microsoft.This story, “Migrate to virtual hard disks with Sysinternals Disk2VHD 1.0,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization at InfoWorld.com. Software Development