P2V from Lenovo Laptop to Recover PST
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Computer is a Lenovo IdeaPad Z580. OS is Windows 10 x64. We have recovered the customer's data but they used Windows Live Mail or one of its equivalents for email, which used POP3 (it was an ISP email). The power port on the laptop is all messed up so while the computer works, the battery is dead and we have no way to charge it.
I was thinking of doing a P2V on the HDD and booting it from Hyper-V off my Windows 10 Pro laptop. However, the P2V tool MS provides pulls it by IP. Is there anything I can do to take an image of the drive offline and convert it that way? Or, although I don't think it'll work, would booting the drive using another computer possibly work?
Thanks,
A.J. -
Pull the hard drive out and just search for the email files? (Does Live Mail use PST?)
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@dafyre said:
Pull the hard drive out and just search for the email files? (Does Live Mail use PST?)
Generally you have to export it.
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Those files are stored on there somewhere, just need to figure out what the format is or the file name is and grab it.
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Use Clonezilla to make an image, then restore that image into a VM, then do what you want.
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You might could get away with clonezilla as @Dashrender suggested and then run a repair if it blue screens on boot.
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@Dashrender said:
Use Clonezilla to make an image, then restore that image into a VM, then do what you want.
I considered that but wasn't sure if I could use Clonezilla offline.
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Yea. Clonezilla works mostly offline... You only need Network if you want to save the image to another server.
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@dafyre said:
Yea. Clonezilla works mostly offline... You only need Network if you want to save the image to another server.
Yeah, I just thought about that and realized how stupid I just was. Ugh, I'm tired this morning...
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@thanksajdotcom We'll blame it on too much Turkey over the weekend.... Or Lenovo. We can always blame it on Lenovo.
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No worries, we all get stuck on crazy little things at times... Well maybe not Scott, but the rest of us normals.
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@Dashrender said:
No worries, we all get stuck on crazy little things at times... Well maybe not Scott, but the rest of us normals.
I'm downloading the latest Clonezilla ISO and I'm going to give this a go in just a minute. Ok, so does anyone know an easy way to restore Clonezilla to either Hyper-V or Virtualbox?
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@Dashrender said:
No worries, we all get stuck on crazy little things at times... Well maybe not Scott, but the rest of us normals.
Right...
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I would put the image onto a network drive, then boot your VM with the Clonezilla ISO do a SMB connection and pull the image back down.
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Just remember if you decide to restore as a VM rather than just reading the files that you have done a P2V migration and you now have VDI and the customer owes VDI licensing which would include an upgrade to Pro and annual fees. You should not be talking about VMs here. Just attach the drive or an image of the drive to another machine and read the files. Don't violate MS licensing on behalf of customers or your workplace and if ordered to do do, it is your professional duty to inform the BSA and the state attorney general's office.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Just remember if you decide to restore as a VM rather than just reading the files that you have done a P2V migration and you now have VDI and the customer owes VDI licensing which would include an upgrade to Pro and annual fees. You should not be talking about VMs here. Just attach the drive or an image of the drive to another machine and read the files. Don't violate MS licensing on behalf of customers or your workplace and if ordered to do do, it is your professional duty to inform the BSA and the state attorney general's office.
His end goal is to recover files from a system that won't boot, not allow the customer to access it remotely. How does that cause it to become VDI?
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@dafyre said:
His end goal is to recover files from a system that won't boot, not allow the customer to access it remotely. How does that cause it to become VDI?
His goal is a red herring. It is his actions that cause the issue. You can't P2V Windows desktops OSes without going into VDI. See all of @BRRABill's threads about this exact use case the past few weeks, even Microsoft has been on the threads. Using virtualization as a backup and recovery method falls under VDI and the licensing is intense.
He has methods open to him to do this without virtualization and the customer had options before getting to this point.
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The VDI bit is a little confusing. Technically the OS cannot be virtualized - period. It's a Home OEM version (we can assume.) Both home and OEM versions cannot be virtualized or made into VDI. So this would be a violation of the licensing in even more concrete ways.
Bottom line, no matter how you look at it, virtualization cannot be used here.
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Scott is of course correct. So if you can recover the files directly, great - frankly that would be a ton easier anyhow, just slave up the drive to another system and pull the files, import them into something else, you're done.
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Maybe I am not thinking this through, but if this is Windows Live Mail or something similar isn't everything hosted online?
I guess maybe the user has some old messages archived, but Outlook.com offers unlimited mailbox storage so I am not sure why the user isn't just creating folders within their Outlook.com mailbox.
