Introduction: Have you ever wanted to ghost your Vmware Image, but didn't want to take the time to ghost it, or didn't even have enough space due to restrictions set on your virtual drive. Well if you have an .img file set as your hard drive you can use a program called DD to copy it to a partition on your physical H.D.D. And best of all there's no need for a ghost program, no lag, and it’s all free.

Software: Before we begin you will need to have a few things which include:

1. Vmware Workstation - Evaluation Version 2. Dummy File Creator - Full Version

New Virtual Machine: Let’s start out by creating a new Virtual Machine in Vmware. Fire up Vmware and let’s begin...

File>New>Virtual Machine Welcome... >>Next

Custom>Next New - Workstation 5>Next

Select your Operating System>Next

Name your Virtual Machine>Next Select number of processors>Next

Select the amount of memory>Next

Select Network Type (I personally use bridged)>Next

Select I/O Adapter>Next Create New Virtual Disk>Next Use Recommended (It doesn't matter)>Next Select Disk Capacity (Keep allocate disk space now, and split disk into 2GB Files UNCHECKED, It's just a waste of time and wont help you for this config)>Next Name the disk file>Finish

Now that you have finished setting up your virtual machine you need to exit Vmware and find your My Virtual Machines Folder. For me and most people it's located under "C:/Documenents and Settings/*Username*/My Documents/My Virtual Machines". Once you have maneuvered to your My Virtual Machines directory find your Virtual Disk file ending in ".vmdk". Once you have found this file double click to get the "Windows cannot open this file:" dialog, and select the "Select the program from a list" and click ok.

Next you need to choose the program to edit with. I choose WordPad because it puts the code into a little better format than notepad and makes it a lot simpler to edit.

Good now you have the Virtual Disk open. To begin you need to remove the "extra code." This is the basis of the Virtual Disk, and will not be needed. Remove the un-readable text from the top and bottom of the page and continue to the next step...

Your *.vmdk Virtual Disk should now look similar to this.

We first need to edit the "monolithicSparse," and "SPARSE" tags in the file to "monolithicFlat" and "FLAT"

Before

After

Now that these are changed you need to edit the *.vmdk tag to Hard Drive.img (Or whatever you want .img don't forget the .img tag at the end) Then you need to add a space after the "Hard Drive.img" tag and add a zero. Last thing before you save you need to write down the number after the RW tag (highlighted in red). You will need this for the next step.

Double check everything is in order and then save...

Ok almost finished. Next we need to create a "dummy" .img file to act as our hard drive. We first need to fire up a copy of Dummy File Creator and hit browse.

Then you need to once again venture to your "My Virtual Machine" folder. You will need to type in Hard Drive.img (Or whatever you chose when you configured your *.vmdk file.) Make sure you have "All Files (*.*) selected otherwise Dummy File Creator will make a very large .txt file.

Now you need to set the size of the file. Remember that number that you wrote down earlier after the RW in your *.vmdk file. You now need to divide that number by 2. For example: I had the number "16777216" and I would divide it to get "8388608," and if long division isn't your game there is a built in calculator in windows under Start>Programs>Accessories. After you divide your number you need to enter or paste it into the Dummy File Creator (Making sure it is exactly the same, no extra numbers. If it is off your virtual *.img will not function with your *.vmdk file.) Note: It's set at KB's... DON'T USE GB'S. If you think that you can skip a little math and use the GB and just say 8 GB and be done with it, you’re wrong. Vmware is very picky and needs to see the exact file size so you need to have it exact and use KB's. After you hit create it might take a few minutes until voila, your new improved Virtual Drive is done.

Now to make sure it works it works properly. Start Vmware back up and go to your newly created Virtual Machine. Double click on the Hard Disk icon under devices. If you followed everything correctly it should show your proper size hard drive and that it is functioning.

You’re finished but what have you done??? Well this gives you the ability to easily DD the *.img file to a partition, you can easily send out preconfigured Linux distros, and the sky is the limit. This makes things a lot easier in the long run if you plan to use the Vmware image somewhere else. For example OS X for X86 can now be installed on your pc, but in most cases the install DVD will now boot right up. For most you can install and configure in Vmware and then DD it to your Physical Hard Disk and later dual boot.