Boot from Virtual PC/ VMware HDD image

When I load virtual machine ( Vmware or MS virtual PC ) , it makes both host and guest machine (OS) too slow that I cannot work with them.The main reason is because I load them from my laptop which doesn`t have enough hardware performance.How can I make my laptop boot from virtual HDD images ? is there anyway to convert virtual HDD images to Norton Ghost image or Standard image format that I can clone it on my disk ?

thanks