virtual box - getting that old pc to run in a virtual box on your new machine

step 1
create a VDI of your old machine's boot disk
vmware has a free software thingy
get it use it
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

well, tried this with the drive on the NEW machine
so that was fail
moving drive back to the OLD machine and trying it there

oooo and will do the mergeide step too I think

step 1 again
ran mergeide (who knows, makes changes to registry to make export better)
ran vmware thingy on machine while it was running
exported the C drive just fine
copied the file to NEW windows 7 x64 where I will be running vbox

step 2
well, importing the vmdk into vbox was epic fail
thinking it is time to use a diff tool to make vdi
sigh

ooo and old favorite is back
winimage
I think I have been looking for this
no really
you shut up
no you

try # 9001
cygwin as administrator (important bit here)
mount //./E: /dev/old
dd if=/dev/old of=/cygdrive/c/oldpc.dd

so in theory I am making an image of the old C drive ....
we shall see if the next step works

step 10
convertfromraw oldpc.dd oldpc.vdi
admin problem as usual
running in cygwin window ...
working

this ran without error

step B

image is read only
jesus wept
really?
I did a chmod 777 so it SHOULD be ok ....
blargh

at this point, I give up