[FreightTrain]

Can you clone the HDD to a virtual drive in Windows for a one-off massive VDI and plug it into a VM's storage space secondarily, allowing full access to the virtual disk image?

I could have used you a couple months ago lol. That's essentially what I ended up doing. I found a program called macrium reflect that I used to clone the HDD and booted it in a VM. There was probably an easier way, but the program itself made it simple enough and it was free so it worked out in the end.