How to convert VMDK to VDI/VHD

Question

It's said that VirtualBox's VBoxManage modifyhd --resize command can only be used on either VDI or VHD files. Sadly, I have a VirtualBox image that is in VMDK format, and I don't know how to convert it to those other two formats.

Is clonehd not an option for you? – rozcietrzewiacz Aug 15 '11 at 11:31 — rozcietrzewiacz, Aug 15 '11 at 11:31
If it converts to VDI, it is. – tshepang Aug 15 '11 at 11:32 — tshepang, Aug 15 '11 at 11:32

score 33 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 14 '18 at 18:03

33

You can use a two-step procedure then - first, use the clonemedium command to create a VDI image:

VBoxManage clonemedium disk aaaa.vmdk aaaa.vdi --format VDI

(Have a look also at other options to clonemedium, like --variant. To read the help, just run VBoxManage | less or visit https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#vboxmanage-clonevdi).

Once you have the .vdi file, you can proceed with your modifications.

edited Nov 14 '18 at 18:03

David C.

123

answered Aug 15 '11 at 11:46

rozcietrzewiacz

39,269

This even works if the VMDK file points to (parts of) a raw disk image (as created by VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk). – krlmlr Oct 23 '14 at 15:59

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 06 '16 at 15:14

6

If you would like to convert only the virtual disk, not entire VM, you can also use qemu-img for Windows: it's free, portable and it runs under command prompt.

VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V disk image types are all supported.

For example, to convert VMDK to VHDX:

qemu-img.exe convert FileSource-Image.vmdk -O vhdx FileDestination-Image.vhdx

Extracted from: http://www.sysadmit.com/2016/08/vmware-convertir-vhdx-en-vmdk.html

answered Aug 06 '16 at 15:14

Tomas Jiménez

61

Thank you. This is exactly what I needed. QEMU is great since it is installable cross-platform too. – SeligkeitIstInGott Oct 08 '18 at 14:00

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 12 '23 at 15:48

You can convert .vmdk files into .vdi and .vhd files in VirtualBox7 using the GUI in the following way:

in the VirtualBox GUI under "Copy Medium" select the file to be converted.
and then select .vdi or .vhd as the target format.
and then execute the conversion

How to convert VMDK to VDI/VHD

3 Answers3