Convert vm to native/dual-boot

Question

Long shot: I run an ubuntu 10.4 machine under VMware, Windows 7 host. I use it more and more as my primary machine, and wish now that I had installed it as a dual boot system, since the sluggishness of the vm is a continual irritation. So -- is it possible somehow to convert the ubuntu system to run natively?

If not, are there any tools to help me transfer all my files and settings to a new dual-boot Ubuntu system?

Answer 1

Well.... you can use qemu-img to extract the raw image of the filesystem.

I would do this:

1) Booting a live cd with qemu-img tool
2) Dump vmware image into a external usb hard-drive in raw format.
3) Shrink NTFS partition to make room for the ubuntu
        image and swap (or more, if you want)
4) Create a new ext3 partition and swap partition to fill in the new free space
5) Dump the raw image to the new ext3
6) [resizefs if partition > size(raw image)]
7) chroot to the new ext3 partition
8) execute grub-install to (hd0)
9) test if works

I made a similar thing before and it worked