Convert Parallels VM to Virtual Box VM?

VirtualBox can use Parallels (.hdd) disks in simple-format without conversion. If the disk does not use the simple format, it must be converted first using the Parallels Image Tool.

But I would uninstall Parallels Tools first (if you have it installed on the VM) and make a backup copy of the VM. Then create a new VirtualBox machine, matching the CPU and memory settings as closely as you can to the Parallels machine.

You may also refer to this article on migration, although it is a bit old and recommends using VMWare Converter, which I would avoid if you can.

The procedure is like this: (Parallels Desktop 12)

1) Prepare the Parallels VM by removing the Parallels Tools and anything that is “special" (mounts, shared folders, etc)..

sudo /usr/lib/parallels-tools/install -r

2) Copy the HDD file from inside the PVM OS X package into the open file system (Finder, Right Click, Show Package Content). Generally, the first HDD file contains the bootable system.

3) Use this command line tool while being in the directory where the HDD file is located:

$/Applications/Parallels\ Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_disk_tool convert --hdd my-parallels-disk1.hdd --plain

4) The resulting HDD file replaces the source file and still is a package. So enter again and copy the HDS (not HDD) file into the open file system, best where the (empty) VirtualBox VM is located (You can use the “file” command on the HDS to verify that it is indeed a bootable disk image).

5) Rename the file giving it a HDD extension.

6) Add the file as (start-up) disk to an “empty” VirtualBox VM, (update settings), boot and enjoy.

More info here.

Hope this helps :)

If someone is using Parallels 11, 12 or 13 and VirtualBox 5 - it is much much easier.

Step 1: Expand the Package Contents of the parallel's HDD

Step 2: Within that there is an HDS file, ideally there will be only 1 file containing the data (unless split option was used), just double check the size of the file which is a good indication of the file you are looking for.

Step 3: Copy the HDS file to a new location that VirtualBox can access, rename the file and change its extension to hdd.

Step 4: Attach the newly copied file directly with the VirtualBox.

Step 5: Test everything, this is good to go.

Step 6: Run the guest OS, uninstall old parallels tool and install VirtualBox guest tools.

These steps will get finished within minutes and no conversion needed.

I have just finished executing all of these steps day before and tested.

After this, I executed the below listed Optional steps, so that the hdd file gets converted into VDI file. With VDI file the VirtualBox gets more control: most important one being optimizing the free space, which i sorely needed.

Optional Steps: (Switch off guest OS before this)

Step 7: From within VirtualBox tool, Open Global Tools, it will list all harddisks

Step 8: Use Copy function, this will export the attached HDD file to any other compatible options: VDI, VHD, VMDK and more, after researching which is best option i chose VDI - since this is native to VirtualBox.

In future if i need to export the Virtual machine to some other format, then VirtualBox has export option and supports "Open Virtualisation Format".

Basically with the above procedure, you skip the parallels tool for conversion, somewhere VMware converter was proposed, you skip that too. You will only need 1 single tool: VirtualBox, to complete all the steps.