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Is it possible to create a bootable img of my Windows10 partition via the gnome-disk utility?

Or rather, what is the best / recommended way for creating a bootable image of Windows partition via an Ubuntu 20.04 LiveUSB session?

Can a bootable img of a Windows partition be created from within Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 without the need of a LiveUSB session?

My goal is to create a bootable image of my Windows 10 partition,so that I can convert it .vdi format and use it with Vbox6.1 inside Ubuntu 20.04 desktop.

Thanks

nightwatch
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  • A Live Ubuntu USB can be used to make an .IMG file of the Windows drive. The .IMG file can be converted to .VDI, See item 4 reverse: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1300540/how-to-duplicate-a-ubuntu-system-for-distribution – C.S.Cameron Aug 19 '22 at 16:39

1 Answers1

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It depends what do you mean by "bootable".

Generally, partition images (regardless of what tool do you use to create them) are meant to be used by restoring them onto the same partition they were created from, in case anything happens to the data on the partition.

In this sense, if you make a partition image, then for example delete all files on the Windows partition, and restore the image back onto the Windows partition, it will be bootable.

It can be done either from live session or from the installed Ubuntu system, as long as the partition is not mounted and "Fast Boot" feature has been turned off in Windows before shutting down Windows (if "Fast Boot" is enabled, Windows does not shut down completely and some files on the Windows partition are left in an incomplete state. This probably should not disturb creating and restoring a partition image, but just for safety I would recommend turning this "feature" off).

However, if you want to restore it onto another disk and be able to boot from it, this will usually not work. It requires to have also a bootloader, EFI partition (if Windows is installed in UEFI mode) and/or sometimes some "Microsoft reserved partition" that is used to boot Windows in legacy BIOS mode.

Edit: as for converting physical Windows 10 installation to .vdi format, there are specialized tools to do it, usually from within Windows. I'm by no way a specialist on it, but this is the first result I found by searching the Net: https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/148559-windows-10-physical-to-virtualbox . Probably you can find more help on this topic on SuperUser, as this is not much Ubuntu-related.

raj
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