09.11.2010 01:48, Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote: > I'm trying to convert a physical Windows XP machine into a KVM guest. > All the guides so far mentions using dd to create a flat image file, > then using qemu-img to convert that to qcow2. Since I've been making > mistake here and there, retrying the process several times (initially > converting each logical partition into an image), the question struck > me: is there any reason why I cannot do something like this > qemu-img convert -f /dev/sdc -O qcow2 /images/winxp.qcow instead of > having to do it in two passes which literally take hours each. This is exactly the way to do it - converting the physical disk directly to a qcow (or whatever format) file using qemu-img. I've no idea why all the guide writers are so confused. The only problem with your exact version is that you've extra -f argument - it expects a parameter, the input image type, which is raw, so either use -f raw, or remove -f. /mjt -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html