Convert a Physical Mac into a VM

[RandolphR]

I have an external, bootable USB drive with OSX 11.5 installed and would like to convert it to a VM on my Macbook... I use the drive as a development environment and want it now to be a VM on my Macbook rather than on an external drive. How would I do this (I know this can be done in Fusion)?

 

[Sasti@Parallels]

I have an external, bootable USB drive with OSX 11.5 installed and would like to convert it to a VM on my Macbook... I use the drive as a development environment and want it now to be a VM on my Macbook rather than on an external drive. How would I do this (I know this can be done in Fusion)?

Hello @RandolphR,
If this is a USB installation media, you could create the VM as mentioned in this article.
or
If this is a portable OS (like Windows-to-go), try installing the Parallels Desktop on this OS X and create the VM from recovery partition.
Let us know if you have a different requirement.

 

[MaxP17]

Hello Sasti,

I need to make a paralel vm from a macOS partition that I already on my system, how do I do that?
Your help is greatly appriciated. Thanks!

This is Max.

 

[Pramesh Boodadoo]

Hello Sasti,

I need to make a paralel vm from a macOS partition that I already on my system, how do I do that?
Your help is greatly appriciated. Thanks!

This is Max.

Hello Max,
Unfortunately, host macOS cannot be converted into Parallels Virtual Machines.
Kindly find below the Supported OS (Windows): Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 *
Please refer to this link for more information: https://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/resources/#movingpc
Thank you.

 

[Aries@PF]

>Unfortunately, host macOS cannot be converted into Parallels Virtual Machines.
I think this is not true. Parallels just doesn't provide a one-step software solution that does it for you.

Here is how I would do it:

Can you not simply point the VM's installer (mid-installation process) to a Time Machine backup? Even if you have to do it as a manual installation?

 

[JohnneyL]

I have an external, bootable USB drive with OSX 11.5 installed and would like to convert it to a VM on my Macbook... I use the drive as a development environment and want it now to be a VM on my Macbook rather than on an external drive. How would I do this (I know this can be done in Fusion)?

Hello, Aries i think I have a solution to your problem few days ago i also faced the same issue.