Getting Virtualized!!!

I had been looking for a process where you could take an existing physical machine, and convert it into a new virtual one.
There are a few steeps that are needed in order to achive this goal:
- Define a virtualized hardware: CPU, Memory, IO, Networking.
- Export the data: this is the most critical process.
In order to get an vmkd file or vdi of an existing physical instalation consists in a few steps that i will explain here:
- First, boot the operating system with a live linux cd.
- Second, identify the partition or partitions involved in the recovery. For instance hd3
- Third, make a good use of dd like this one:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/mnt/USB/diskImage/win2k3.img bs=1024
the partition will be dumped into a file.
- Fourth: qemu-img convert -f raw /mnt/USB/diskImage/w2k3.img -O vmdk /mnt/external/diskImage/w2k3.vmdk