Clonezilla image conversion to a .img file issue.
 

Hi, hopefully someone can help me with this issue. I have a Clonezilla image of a Linux application it has the format of "name-img". I need to restore this image to a Virtualbox Red hat machine but can't convert the Clonezilla image to .vdi (or -img when I could convert it to .vhi) Many thanks in anticipation.

The first hit on DDG: How to Convert Clonezilla to VirtualBox.

Hi Shruggy, many thanks for the response, however the problem when I get to step 3 of the steps by Michael Butler is that the types of disk image allowed are ..vmdk, .vdi, .vhd, .hdd, .qed, .qcow, .vhdx. The disk image created by Clonezilla does not have any of those extensions it simply ends in a -img Not .img. I need to be able to convert the -img from Clonezilla into a .vdi.

Did you try changing the image name to .img? The dash may be confusing things.

Hi Utek, thanks for the suggestion, I have tried adding a .img extension to the file but when I tried converting it then to a .vdi (for virtualbox) I get "access denied" after the convertfromraw command. I have even changed permissions to no avail. All clonezilla disk backups (as far as I can see) all end up with the file name abcxyz-img. there must be some way of converting them to a .VDI, .VHD, etc to use as a virtual drive... I have tried using Clonezilla to create an .iso image from the backup but error tells me the backup image is too large for cd.

I have not previously used either clonezilla or VirtualBox, so I installed VirtualBox and put a copy of clonezilla live on usb to test what you are seeing.
Making a clone of my system took some time but I wound up with a directory on my usb stick named 2021-07-03-16-img. That directory contains all the files created by clonezilla for my system.
I then used VirtualBox and followed the instructions on the page linked in post #2.
Selecting the -img directory as the source and waiting a few moments allowed VirtualBox to begin reading the image files and I see this during the process. (a progress bar)

You don't convert the file, you allow VirtualBox to read the image file(s) and do the restore from that image into the .vdi virtual drive. The restore must complete before the VM is able to boot, and the time involved is dependent upon your system and the size of the image being restored.

Hi Computersavvy, thanks for your reply, I have tried that earlier but not successful, I shall try that again, if it works for you it must be something I am not getting. I shall start again. Thank you.

Hi Computersavvy again, I have followed the steps carefully and when I get to the point where I have to add the disk with the image to install it looks for all of the normal virtual drive formats and will not accept my image with the -img extension. What am I doing wrong I wonder. I am in a bit of a fix because the image I am trying to install came from a machine that no longer exists so I can not recreate it. I do have several images of it created when the original machine was alive and all give me the same result.

Going just a little deeper into the results from a google search I also found these links, which have more info on how to do what is needed for installing a clonezilla image into a VirtualBox VM. These looked promising with techniques that may work for you.

https://jlorenzen.blogspot.com/2010/...age-using.html
https://blog.hyperionworks.com/blog/...-machine-image

There are many other links and I did not take time to research more as yet.

There is more than one way to skin that cat, and all it will take is patience and a bit more research until you find a way to do what is needed.

I wonder if it may not be almost as easy to do a clonezilla restore to a suitable hard drive instead of a VM.

Hi again Computersavvy many thanks for your help. The problem with installing on a suitable disk is that I want to run it on a Windows platform (the person using it only works in a windows environment). After following closely the steps outlined in Post 2 (as you did) but using Clonezilla in the VBox to install the image and it has worked to a degree but the issues now are simply configuration setting which I am working through. Again many thanks to you and all who responded to my plea.

Thought Clonezilla makes a number of files? When I do this I make a virtual machine. Boot to Clonezilla and use it to clone the data. Build a vm either in the target vm program or build on a supported virtual hard drive format.

Clonezilla does make a number of files, but when doing the restore clonezilla only needs to be able to read the directory it created to restore the files. Clonezilla manages the rest, although it is possible to do the restore manually as well according to the different posts I read on the subject.

Hi jefro when you say you "build on a supported virtual hard drive format" do you build this on the host machine
Then import it to the VM?