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  version="5.0"
  xml:id="ch_converting">
    <title>Converting between image formats</title>
    <para>Converting images from one format to another is generally straightforward.</para>
    <simplesect>
        <title>qemu-img convert: raw, qcow2, VDI, VMDK</title>
        <para>The <command>qemu-img convert</command> command can do conversion between multiple
            formats, including raw, qcow2, VDI (VirtualBox), VMDK (VMware) and VHD (Hyper-V).</para>
<table
                rules="all">
                <caption>qemu-img format strings</caption>

                    <thead>
                        <tr>
                            <th>Image format</th>
                            <th>Argument to qemu-img</th>
                        </tr>
                    </thead>
                    <tbody>
                        <tr>
                            <td>raw</td>
                            <td><literal>raw</literal></td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>qcow2</td>
                            <td><literal>qcow2</literal></td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>VDI (VirtualBox)</td>
                            <td><literal>vdi</literal></td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>VMDK (VMware)</td>
                            <td><literal>vmdk</literal></td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>VHD (Hyper-V)</td>
                            <td><literal>vpc</literal></td>
                        </tr>
                    </tbody>
            </table>
        <para>This example will convert a raw image file named centos63.dsk to a qcow2 image file.</para>
        <para>
            <screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput>qemu-img convert -f raw -O qcow2 centos64.dsk centos64.qcow2</userinput></screen>
        </para>
        <para>To convert from vmdk to raw, you would do:
            <screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput>qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O raw centos64.vmdk centos64.img</userinput></screen></para>
        <para>
            <note>
                <para>The <literal>-f <replaceable>format</replaceable></literal> flag is optional.
                    If omitted, qemu-img will try to infer the image format.</para>
            </note>
        </para>
    </simplesect>
    <simplesect>
        <title>VBoxManage: VDI (VirtualBox) to raw</title>
        <para>If you've created a VDI image using VirtualBox, you can convert it to raw format using
            the <command>VBoxManage</command> command-line tool that ships with VirtualBox. On Mac
            OS X, VirtualBox stores images by default in the <filename>~/VirtualBox VMs/</filename>
            directory. The following example creates a raw image in the current directory from a
            VirtualBox VDI
            image.<screen><prompt>$</prompt> <userinput>VBoxManage clonehd ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/fedora18.vdi fedora18.img --format raw</userinput></screen></para>
    </simplesect>
</chapter>