Converting Image File Format From GHO to VMDK and From VMDK to GHO

Converting Image File Format From GHO to VMDK and From VMDK to GHO

Converting Image File Format From GHO to VMDK and From VMDK to GHO
yogeshsadhu's picture
yogeshsadhu
02 Jun 2010

In your environment you may have to use different image file format while performing imaging or cloning operations, Ghost and Vmware are widely used technologies for preparing machine either for development or for testing purpose.

Ghost treats virtual disks as images. You can image a machine to a virtual disk (create a vmdk file instead of a .gho file), and you can restore a machine from a vmdk file. While performing any imaging operation GHO is the default file format of ghost

VMDK files cannot be opened in Ghost explorer, You can mount a VMDK file by using ghost with switch �Cad=<image file name>, once it is mounted can be used in all ghost operation.

You may want to use a Physical machine's Ghost image in vmdk or otherwise, you may want to use a vmdk to prepare a Physical machine .

By performing following simple commands you can convert the GHO files to VMDK and a VMDK file to GHO.

To convert from GHO to VMDK
ghost32 -clone,mode=restore,src=my.gho,dst=myimage.vmdk -batch -sure

To convert from VMDK to GHO spliiting into 100MB chunks
ghost32 -clone,mode=create,src=my.vmdk,dst=myimage.gho -batch -sure -split=100

There are some more switch available

* vmdktype: Used for specifying the VMDK file type , which can be Sparse or Flat
* vmdksplit: Used for splitting the VMDK image
* vmdksize: Used in specifying the size of vmdk file
* vmdkAdapter: Specifying the type of disk adapter for created vmdk

To create a VMDK file form machine directly
Ghost32 �Cclone,mode=create,src=1,dst=myimage.vmdk -vmdk -sure

To restore VMDK image on machine directly
Ghost32 �Cclone,mode=restore,src=myimage.vmdk,dst=1 -vmdk -sure