Hello everyone.. Iam totally noob when it comes to virtualization.. So i need help from you ppl to get going.. Earlier in 80s and 90s we used a dos server for our accounting purpose.. What it actually does is that when the client is connected to the dos server, we get access to our accouting software and all the accounting datas are stored in the server... Everything works in dos... Now I really needed to generate a accounts report from it.. But the server computer is not working.. When i took the hdd from it and connected it to my office computer, i can see data in it.. What i did is copied all the files from it and saved it to my office computer.. Then i converted it to iso file.. I then downloaded virtualbox and did little study about it... Converted the iso file to vdi file using following cmd Code: VBoxManage convertfromraw -format VDI [filename].img [filename].vdi Then when i created a new VM with converted vdi file and started it, NOTHING HAPPENS (Fatal : no bootable medium found) Can this be done? some1 plz help me with this TY
There is too much to type here but,,,, Why did you convert the iso to vdi. I do not think that is necessary but,,,, First will the dos prog run in dos mode in xp? or Win 95? We always ran our dos on an XP machine. Yes you can create a dos VM but, you will need to get the data moved and it is all easier in XP. My thoughts are... Create a VM of XP then run the dos program "accounting" from the XP dos command prompt. There is a program called dosbox which might help
Thx for the info.. I did a bit of research with the files that i copied from server HDD.. I found that it is running Novell Netware 3.12.. Now i guess i cannot extract the accounting Application from it.. Am i right? b'coz, i cant find any file related to accounting.. So, I thing The only way to do this is to make a bib by bit copy of the hdd and make it run on VM.. Am i right?? TY
Hi Navino87, Most of this will be guess work, but its based on years of 'Playing' with virtual PC's. First copying OS files from a HDD to another HDD or VHD is never going to work, as the OS needs to be installed. With programs and applications it might work, I've found it tends to work better with older programs, so you could be in luck with your accounts program. Most of the VM software around today is designed to intergrate with the hardware, which means it works better with modern OS's. Hence installing DOS, OS2 or Novell is a real pain. The last time I got DOS 6.2 working in a VM was with 'MS Virtual PC 2004' but I had the use the 'Additions' from an older version 'Connectix Virtual PC v5' to get it working right. My guess is it would be the same with Novell as (if I remember correctly) it installs on top of DOS. Once you've got that working, try draging your accounts program and files over to the VHD, it might work enough to solve your problem. If not you'll have to install the account program and see if the copied files will work. I don't have alot of experience with VMWare or VirtualBox, but my guess is they are the same. So the older the version your using the better your chances are of getting a good DOS, Novell enivorment to work with. Good Luck.
Make a vm and set guest os to DOS (vmware has preconfigured profiles for most common operating systems, so probably virtualbox has it too). Now make an image (acronis, ghost, whatever) and make sure also bootsector, mbr etc are included in the image. Boot virtualbox from a bootdisc that's able to restore the image (like hiren's bootdisc) and write the image to the vhd. Dos doesn't make much problems about changed hardware, so you won't face any further problems I think. The only issue there might be is to get your network running. There are many ways to do it, but this is how I'd do it.
Thanks every1 for the reply.. Things becomes very complected for me Is there any easy way to retrive the data from the novell partition??? There is a partition that does't showup in windows.. I guess that partition is novell's NWFS partition.. Is there a way to access this partition from windows?? If this can be done, things become very easy for me... Some1 plz help me with this.. TY
Not exactly.. First i thought to make it run virtually and retrieve datas from it.. But not it has become very complicated for me to run netware3.2 in the virtual machine.. Every attempt i took failed.. So, i thought of an easy alternative...
It was DOS in first post? Now you want to retrieve some data from Novell traditional volume? If so the solution is easy, using Portlock Storage Manager bootable CD Boot the server in place, access partition, copy data & you are done sebus