Virtual Workshop

Virtual Hard Disk Formats

None of the popular hypervisor applications can use images in the "raw" format that you get when you download a Jetstream image. Such files must first be converted into one of several other "virtual hard disk" formats. The following table shows the most convenient formats that are accepted by popular hypervisor applications. A few additional formats have been omitted from the table because it is more difficult to convert "raw" images into those formats.

Converting an Image File

To convert your "raw" Jetstream image file into another virtual hard disk format, a good choice is to use the VBoxManage application that is installed along with VirtualBox. This application can be used even if you do not intend to launch your instance in VirtualBox. After installing VirtualBox, open a shell and issue a command like this example:

VBoxManage convertfromraw source-image.raw dest-image.vhd

If VBoxManage is not in your executable path, you will need to include its location at the beginning of the command. source-image.raw is the path and name for your downloaded Jetstream image file. dest-image.vhd is the path, name and extension of the image you want to produce. The extension can be any of VDI, VHD or VMDK and will instruct VBoxManage to produce a virtual disk of that format.

Alternate Method When Running Hyper-V on Windows

Windows users who want to run their image in Hyper-V will need to create an image in VHD format. Hyper-V may not accept a VHD file produced by VBoxManage, so an alternative conversion utility is needed. The qemu-img utility works similarly to VBoxManage and its VHD output is compatible with Hyper-V. After installing qemu-img, perform the conversion with a command like this example:

qemu-img.exe convert source-image.raw -O vpc dest-image.vhd

The -O option specifies the output format and is required. The code vpc corresponds to the format VHD.