Transferring a server to a virtual machine, what's the best way?

Question

Backup

Good afternoon.
It is required to transfer a server located on a physical machine to a virtual machine.
The server is running Windows XP, it needs to be migrated without any changes.
From the very beginning, I just wanted to transfer all the data to the virtual disk using disk2vhd, but for some reason this utility does not finish its work - it just stops at 100% and nothing happens, I even tried to leave it overnight. Why is that? Can something be done? I did not find similar programs that can do this operation from a running XP.
Maybe you can suggest some other methods? In principle, there is physical access to the servers, you can try to transfer it with Acronis, but it’s better, of course, remotely.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In your case, the best way is to deploy a virtual machine, install the OS and the necessary software there, and then transfer the data from the physical machine. Otherwise, very diverse artifacts are possible. Both during the transfer process and in the subsequent operation of such a virtual machine.

Answer 2

The server is running Windows XP

...died from a template break...
If transferred to VmWare, they have a wonderful converter that will create a car for ESXi from any car - even bare-metal, even virtual machines in any environment