VMware Communities : Thread List - P2V Assistant Archives

UltimateP2V very slow

cneville — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 21:22:28 GMT

I am testing Ultimate P2V. I am using ESX 3.0.1 with all the patches applied. I am only getting about 60M per minute transfer.

I can ghost from the same machine to a shared directory on a VM in the same ESX at about 210M per minute. This is on a 100M network but the times on a GE network are only slightly higher.

Is anyone else seeing this with ESX 3.0.x?

We have rebuild the ISO with the latest drivers but see no change in the speed.

.VMDK file does not appear when trying to create a new VM using P2V

cfuller74 — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 21:15:04 GMT

Hi,
I'm stuck at this particular step:

"Use your virtual machine product's user interface to create a new
virtual machine with the guest OS type set to: Windows Server 2003
When configuring the primary virtual disk, choose the 'use existing disk'
option and select the target virtual disk that P2V Assistant created
or populated."

When I browse to the directory that contains the files (after P2V configuration) they don't appear. However, other VMDK files do appear when I browse to other VM directories.

Why won't the VM files appear on the machine that I've clone/re-configured?

Ideas?

HELP!

VMWare Converter Help

russhill — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 11:39:15 GMT

Hi, sorry for posting here, I can't see another appropriate forum.

I am using the latest Beta of the VMware Converter and am having terrible difficulty converting physical machines that run Windows 2000. I have successfully imported XP machines without a problem.

All the Win 2000 machines I have tried are running SP4 and I note that there are a number of postings "similar" to the problem I am experiencing.

When the convert fails, I consistently get the following error in the logs:

[2007-01-11 14:22:43.547 '[postProcessingTask,113] Could not locate file: WINNT\$NtUpdateRollupPackUninstall$/scsiport.sys
[2007-01-11 14:22:43.641 '[task,234] Task failed: P2VError HOTFIX_FILE_NOT_FOUND()
[2007-01-11 14:22:43.641 '[task,278] Transition from InProgress to Failure requested
[2007-01-11 14:22:43.641 '[task,327] Transition succeeded

I have attempted to use the advice from other P2V posts regarding scsiport.sys and copied the version from the $NtUpdateRollupPackUninstall$ to the winnt\system32\drivers folder, renaming and overwriting the version located there (which as indicated in the P2V posts was a newer version).

However, while this prevents me from being prompted by the VMware converter wizard for the location of the hotfix version of scsiport.sys, the conversion still fails with the error above.

Any help with this would be much appreciated.

thanks in advance

Russ

P2V with no downtime?

dkloster — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 18:30:13 GMT

Is there a product on the market that lets you do a P2V without having to take the physical server off line while it being virtualized? I vaguely remember hearing about a tool that did this while at VMworld.

Unable to import Windows 2000 physical machine

fettbemme — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:21:29 GMT

I am trying to import a Windows 2000 physical machine. The converter is starting up fine, but upon starting the actual import, it fails at once.
The relevant part of the log-file reads as follows:

[2007-01-15 12:51:41.902 '[task,214] Starting execution of a Task
[2007-01-15 12:51:41.912 '[jobManager,179] Raising event 4 for job 2
[2007-01-15 12:51:41.922 '[ufaTask,109] Successfully connected to VMImporter
[2007-01-15 12:51:41.962 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,107] Successfully connected to VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:41.992 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,799] Start managed object method for task VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:41.992 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,429] Waiting for updates from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:41.992 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,657] (Re)Start waiting for property updates from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:42.032 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,738] Got an update from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:42.032 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,429] Waiting for updates from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:42.042 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,657] (Re)Start waiting for property updates from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.804 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,738] Got an update from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.804 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,868] Remote task VmiImportTask::task{4} completed
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.804 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,429] Waiting for updates from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.804 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,657] (Re)Start waiting for property updates from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.835 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,738] Got an update from VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.835 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,504] Cleaning up remote task VmiImportTask::task{4}
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.855 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,1155] Disposing task wrapper for task VmiImportTask::task{4}

//here comes the error message:

[2007-01-15 12:51:43.875 '[task,234] Task failed: P2VError UNKNOWN_METHOD_FAULT(sysimage.fault.FileCreateError)

// I do have all the necessary rights to write to the chosen folder, though

[2007-01-15 12:51:43.875 '[task,278] Transition from InProgress to Failure requested
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.875 '[task,327] Transition succeeded
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.885 '[jobManager,1206] Job 2 failed: import failed
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.885 '[job,206] Job 2 changing state from 1 to 2
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.885 '[serialization,210] Serializing job 2
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.885 '[serialization,217] Archiving job to D:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\User\Anwendungsdaten\VMware\p2v30\jobs\00000002.xml
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.905 '[jobManager,179] Raising event 2 for job 2
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.915 '[jobManager,179] Raising event 6 for job 2
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.925 'Shutting down VMDB service...
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.925 'Unregistering callback...
[2007-01-15 12:51:43.925 '...done

Target drive is on a network, it is NTFS, I have all the necessary rights to it.
Anyone an idea?
Sincerely,

How to migrate a MSCS from physical to virtual

francescog — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:14:19 GMT

Hi all,
I need to virtualize a physical-to-physical mscs cluster with shared storage in SAN, and I was looking for advices to perform this job in the most correct way, mainly to avoid disasters...

The first question that I would arise is: do I need to evict one of the two nodes before P2V it or I just need to failover the services?

The second is: assuming that I evicted the node, once virtualized, I need to add the physical LUNs to a second virtual SCSI adapter using the RDM. Before doing that, I need to present the clustered LUNs to the physical ESX nodes. Is this correct and possible? Is this action dangerous or the locking mechanism of the cluster service prevents to the virtual node to "damage" the data on the LUNs?

Once the virtual node sees the LUN and I have rebuilt the networking relationships, I would rejoin the node to the cluster, then I'll repeat all the steps for the second physical node.

Thank you

Solution for converting a physical machine to ta Virtual Machine

brian.hill@ogilvy.com — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:05:59 GMT

I'm sure there are many hints from within the multitudes of postings here but i'm hoping someone can give me some good tips on how I can go about converting a PHYSICAL Windows 2000/XP machine in to a virtual machine.

Going the VM Converter route, I downloaded the beta version and tried several different ways that it mentioned: Importing the source via the local physical machine, over the network, and something called "cold cloning" using a Converter boot CD.

I have had no luck finding out how to acquire this boot cd. So perhaps someone can tell me how I can get it or will the P2V cd work? Agian, the goal is to create a Virtual Machine out of a physical machine.

It would be much appreciated if you could guide me in the right direction as to where the best place is to start in order to accomplish this goal.

Thanks
Brian

Converter hangs when P2Ving a specific hard disk

jsola — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:47:24 GMT

VMCommunity,

I have the strangest situation. I am trying to convert a Dell Poweredge 2550 from Physical to Virtual using Beta VMConverter. The server is an old archive server for HR that just sits on and is file shared for historical purposes only. This is what keeps happening:

I am locally converting physical to virtual > ESX 3.0. I notice the conversion takes forever, last night i left it running and it hung around for 17 hours and then failed. I noticed it is failing when attempting to create the second hard drive because i was able to succesfully convert the machine this morning by selecting only the c:\ as the drive to convert and leave the secondary data drive (d:\) behind. Now i was able to succesfully power on the machine and it booted just fine into Windows NT4 but the concern i have is that this is specifically related to this one machine or is it because it is an older OS (NT4) ? has anyone run into this before??????

Exception in ConnectPopulated Disk

kpmg_p2v — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:27:07 GMT

Hello,

After booting from P2V 2.0.3 boot cd, P2V assistant identifies the disk to clone, but after selecting it, throws out the following message:
'Exception in ConnectPopulated Disk from P2V App:
Automation Error
The remote procedure call failed"

The machine I am trying to clone is a Compaq with W2K OS, and using the latest version of P2V, 2.1.2, will not even boot .I found a post that using p2v 2.0.3 might fix my problem. It does, in a sense that I can get a little bit further, but I get stuck at a different point.

Any idea how to troubleshoot this?

Beta Converter

akatsuki — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:49:37 GMT

hi,

I'm doing some tests on our dev VM ESX 3, I manage to move my laptop (OS: windows xp) to VW using VM converter software, but when I'm trying to move any of servers eg: W2K3 or W2K option to move to ESX is not available ?
Can you advise?

1 vcpu versus SMP

-stijn- — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:24:50 GMT

I will P2V an SQL 2000 server, currently running some databases on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition. On OS level we see 4
Intel Xeon 3GHz CPU's. I guess that this server has 2 dual core CPUs?

During the day there is almost no CPU load and during night they do run a lot of jobs, the total CPU usage peaks once or twice to 40% (average of all cpu's during a 5 minute interval). The overal CPU utilization during night stays between 0 and 15%, with from time to time a peak of 30%.

I did read a lot about 1 vcpu versus SMP (2 or 4 vcpus), however, I still don't know if I should give the VM 1 or 2 vcpu's when I virtualize it?

Message was edited by:
-stijn-

Can't boot from P2V CD

Dusan Ignjatovic — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:15:01 GMT

I want to virtualize an HP Netserver LXr 8000. My P2V boot CD causes the machine to hang? The CD works on other machines. Anyone have a clue?

Error importing XP image

Canadien — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 16:44:48 GMT

hi

I try to import a .sv2i to ESX server v3 and i have message --"Unknown error returned by UFAD".

the Vmware Converter is installed on a Windows XP SP2

thanks in advence

EZP2V Network Problems

BlueBeetle — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 20:43:39 GMT

I got the CD built and burned but when I try and boot the physical machine I get stuck on this message:

"Unable to start Network Location Awareness service"

Any ideas? I've made a couple CDs in case something got messed up during that process but it's the same deal. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

HP Servers - Post P2V CPU Utilization

NorbK — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:19:40 GMT

From observations, after I P2V a Dell server, it seems I can leave everything "as is" and it runs great. I don't even have to touch the Dell specific software but still remove it.

HPs on the other hand, every single time I P2V them, them seem to have issues, mostly with CPU utilization (like 20% when doing nothing). It doesn't seem to be any one process causing it, just random processes that use a little here and there. That same virtual machine would run almost a 0% utilization on the physical box. If I disable the NIC on the VM, the CPU utilization drops to just about nothing.

I've tried gutting a lot of the HP specific software on these but even after all the removing all the applications from add/remove and a few registry keys for services, there still seems to be something residual on these machines. Has anyone found where all of the HP hooks are? Is there a script floating out there to remove everything?

Also, my problems seem to exist only with Windows 2000 OSs.

Message was edited by:
NorbK

Beta Converter 3 job failing

dwilli — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 16:03:56 GMT

I a converted a physical machine to virtual on a VMServer. I now want to move it to an ESX server and it always fails at 98%. Where can I find the logs to look into this or has someone had the same problem before and can help me?

What to use - help appreciated ?

pammiekins — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 16:23:31 GMT

We are trying to build a virtual network with either VMWare or Virtual Server and need to image our domain controllers so we can import them into either of the above software.

We have tried barts, ghost, acronis etc. with no luck as the file types of images created with this software do not seem to be compatible with the above products.

Would we need to use P2V Assistant to image our domain controllers and then how would we import them into VMWare.

Have spent many weeks trying to get images into a virtual network with no luck and would welcome any help

Windows XP not working in VMWARE

hasbrotech — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 21:51:55 GMT

hey all dont know if what im trying to do can actually happen or not so...
I have a ghost image (gho file) that ive created, its a syspreped windows XP. Ive set it up to run mini setup upon restarting and with all other machines ( actually hardware based machines) I have no issues.
When i put this image into VMware 5.5.3 It starts to boot, then gives me the bsod and a stop 7B error, which from past experiences is a mass storage controller error.
In sysprep, I ran the sysprep -bmsd option and all mass storage devices are in the coorect spot and all storage devices from windows xp sp2 are there.
host machine is win xpsp2, vmware 5.5.3, and os on vmware is xpsp2 as well.
any ideas out there for me ? I expect i need to add a mass storage driver in sysprep, but I dont know what to add !! any help out there for me ?

PS. if i run repair on the guest os in vmware, it load fine and works normally..

Anybody have problems moving BLACKBERRY to Virtual server?

jccne — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 17:06:30 GMT

I have unsuccessfully tried twice to move a DC to a Virtual DC now and am a little gun shy. I have that question under another post.

My next attempt is going to be the Blackberry server (15 users). So I am a little concerned about it. Major things on my mind is it's ties to Exchange.

Anyone with any experience doing this?
What (if anything) tripped you up?

P2V Direct Disk Migration Error

NTNEWS — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 05:49:50 GMT

Trying to use Direct Disk Migration with P2V. I have a Windows Server 2003 SP1 server using LSI SCSI bus running P2V V2.1.1 assistant. I have attached a secondary .DSK disk to my P2V assistant server and booted my source with the P2V boot cd. When trying to choose my destination disk, I am presented with the following error:

"Sorry no eligible disk is found...."

I have another Windows Server 2003 (No SP1) running with P2V assistant V2.1.1 as well. With this server I can successfully do a Direct Disk migration, using either a .DSK or .VDMK file. It however, is using the Bus Logic SCSI adaptor.

We have tried adding the Bus Logic adaptor to this machine with no luck. Cannot find anything in the Direct Disk migration requirements that state you must have a special SCSI bus. As well, there are mixed notes about what type of disk is supported as your destination. We have used both .DSK and .VDMK

Any ideas?

Thanks

Installing P@V Assistant 2.1.2

wgself — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:28:53 GMT

When I try to run the downloaded installer VMware-p2v-2.1.2-31118.exe
I get a message box with :
"An incompatible version of VMware Virtual Machine Importer is installed on this machine. Please uninstall.."

I just installed from VMware-server-installer-1.0.1-29996.exe yesterday.
What gives?

Any Vista support ?

YZANGARD — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 08:29:45 GMT

Hello all,

Would like to know if there is a version of these tools available for Vista host OS ?

I'm trying WS 6.0 and would like to import / export some VMs from / to my VI infrastructure but each time I try to install the products (even converter which is in beta stage), it fails.

Any input ?

Diagnostics Partition

Overseer — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:01:07 GMT

I have an IBM 235 server with the diagnostics partition. Can this partition be deleted to allow P2V to try a conversion? I assume that it can be. Any others have to investigate this issue?

Thank you in advance,

Unable to login on a Windows 2000 SP4 server after a P2V.

kms_cc — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 08:57:19 GMT

Hi,

I have used P2V assistant 2.1.1 on a Windows 2003 SP1 Server to do the P2V and the server are booting up just fine. But when I try to login locally, it starts the login proces but I instantly get logged out again.

I have also booted the server in safe mode, but still the same problem.

Best Regards,
Kim

NT 4.0 Cluster and PowerConvert

dinusaur — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:32:02 GMT

Has anybody successfully migrated a Windows NT 4.0 single node cluster to a virtual environment (ESX 2.5x) using PowerConvert 6.x? In our case the clustering services didn't come up after the migration and couldn't get it going after repeated attempts. When we bought the license we had the impression that PowerConvert supports migration of NT cluster. Not much help from PlateSpin, they have decided not to support it! In case somebody has gone through this pain and managed to P2V NT4.0 cluster, we would love to hear.

BL25p Migration with p2v

daniel_uk — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:56:55 GMT

Hi,

Im having mega issues, this dosnt appear to be on the HCL for p2v.

The converter tool isnt liking it either...does anyone have any experience of migrating this? It has SAS/LSI controller.

Thanks

Dan

P2V VERSION 3 - ROCKS!!!

zralok — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:44:52 GMT

EXCELLENT EXCELLENT Product.

PSO Engineers introduced the product to our Jumpstart.

Converter on steriods. Worked GREAT!

10 points to the dev and qa team!

P2V 2.12 Dynamic Disks

chandlm — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:48:02 GMT

I have a 2003 server with two physical drives. The C: is on part of the first and then the D: spans the remaining space of the first and the entire second disk. The P2V assistant comes up and recognizes that, then it goes into 'Analyzing Dynamic Disk' with a dos 'chkdsk' screen in the background. Does anyone know how long this should take? I've left it for 30+ minutes and it still is not coming back. If I exit the chkdsk window it finds the partitions, let's me pick them but then doesn't actually seem to back up the c: partition I picked. Just curious if that chkdsk window will take that much time...

P2V and Aligned Partitions

Damin — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 16:36:35 GMT

Vmware specifically reccomends that both Host and Guest partitions should be aligned on 4k boundaries to maximize performance and decrease I/O requests for writes.

However, I'm having a tough time figuring how to get P2V to work properly in this manner. When I move the data from the physical host to the virtual host, P2V destroys the aligned partition that I've created on the new guest disk and re-creates it.

Does P2V not create aligned partitions? Or, is there a way that I can create the partition and filesystem before I do the P2V move?

Seems that Vmware would make creation of aligned partitions w/ P2V the default and give the customer the option of choosing the starting block of the partition.

HP Netserver E60 issues

MBroda — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 02:57:22 GMT

Updated, sorry, now its a question.

Has anyone successfully p2v'd a netserver? if so, how were u able to do it?

Points to the person that helps!!!!

Yes tried coverter, fails quickly....

Re: p2v not finding network drivers

LithiumKid1976 — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:41:52 GMT

Hi
have you seen the following error when trying to import using the wizard.

"lost connection to remote machine while deploying UFAD"

the pc is next to me and power on...

Thanks

HP NETSERVER E60 issues

MBroda — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 22:34:14 GMT

Has anyone successfully p2v'd a netserver? if so, how were u able to do it?

Points to the person that helps!!!!

New to ESX, P2V. Just some simple questions

cendrizzi — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 14:37:39 GMT

So I've gone through the documentation pretty well but being new on both I still have some lingering questions (that are probably very simple).

So in to convert a physical machine to ESX I have to have the machine with the assistant app (on windows XP in my case) running in the ESX environment right?

So I have that set up and have a lot of HD space setup aside for the images it will produce. So I will use the P2V assistant to convert a windows 2000 and windows 2003 machine. Then I will use the assistand to reconfigure the image. THen what? How do I get the image off the windows XP VM and actually onto my SAN space so I can boot off it?

Thanks!

VMware Converter Beta & Stratus

kynan — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:36:49 GMT

Has anyone created a vm from a Stratus machine?
When I use the Converter (beta), the VM is created "successfully" but will not boot; claims that no OS is found.

VM + MY D.C.= my frustration

zenu — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 04:12:27 GMT

I am in need of assistance with my virtualization problem im having. after I create a ghost image of my primary domain controller and run P2V on it I cant logon to install vm tools. I have searched the internet only to get frustrated and just want to pull out my hair I apologize if this is a repeat question somewhere on this forum but I really need help. Any ideas?

P2V bugs

AGIMA — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 08:04:51 GMT

I tried to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine and had failures when I tried to do:

Convert to a virtual file and the final path had the "\" character on the end.
When the destination was a share that didnt have write capability and there was no report other than "Failure".
The status screen says that it is still in edit mode when it appears to actually be importing the image.

Converting a linux physical machine to a linux virtual machine.

chaitanya.deshpande — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:46:22 GMT

hi,
I have linux physical machine and i want to convert it to a virtual machine. I have a windows xp and have installed VMware Converter on it. Due to some problems with the lilo setup i am not able to boot up linux. So is there any way of converting only my linux physical machine to virtual machine. when i tried doing this by VMware Converter it gave me the following error message --"Unknown error returned by UFAD".

Thank you,

Chaitanya

Any user of P2V (2.1.2) assistant who encountered the following errors?

mpkvmusr — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:10:44 GMT

1.0 A required archive (Driver.cab) could not be found in the source OS, the system reconfiguration will not be offered.

2.0 Exception in FromTgtDisk from Vmount2.Vmount2Disk:partition table is non-existent or corroupt

3.0 Cannot open disk file:Error: Disk library failed (NBD_ERR_NETWORK_CONNECT). Unable to open '/dev/sda@172.16.33.30:7000'. Failed to configure disk scsi0:0

Source Server: Dell 2450, WIN2K SVR, RAID5

Similar issues encountered on Dell 2550, WIN2K3, RAID 1

p2v not finding network drivers

LithiumKid1976 — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:40:16 GMT

Hi,
im using p2v 2.1 and 2.0.3 to try and P2v a HP DC7600 desktop.
but it will not locate the network for this machine. it has a broadcom net-extreem ethernet card installed.

we have tried adding drivers, but with no sucess, im just wondering if any one else has had this problem, and would moving to P2V 2.1.2 fix this?

any suggestions appreaciated..

Damien

Converting a win2k3 Virtual Server to ESX disk.

Bchannon — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:48:52 GMT

Hi all,

I used P2Va to take a copy of a physical server's disk and created it as a new 2nd disk on a VMWare server virtual machine. As part of the reconfiguration process I made sure that I had ticked the target as being a 2.5x ESX hosted disk.

After shutting down the VMWare server virtual and removing the disk I copied the small file and the -flat file to the ESX server. I then ran the vmkfstools -i command on it in ESX all looked good. However, i then created an ESX virtual machine and used this as it's existing disk but it refuses to boot giving me the following error message:

One or more of your disk files were created by a more recent version of VMware software and are not supported by this version of VMware ESX Server.

Any ideas how I get around this? I've seen a few forum posts but I'm having difficulty pulling them all together to get a good direction..

Thanks for your help!

Brett

Applications not working after P2V

Sticky — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 19:18:17 GMT

I have completed a P2V of a Server using Ghost and VMware P2V.

The OS comes up find and works great but the bulk of applications installed are not working. The server is Windows 2003 Std SP1 with Citrix Presentation Server 4 installed.

While at the console of the server most of the installed applications will not run. Most just start the exe and die.

Nothing is showing in the event viewer.

Any suggestions?

P2V newbie questions

David Walsh — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 15:53:46 GMT

I have an NT4 Terminal Server PC which is getting flakey and want to virtualise it on one of my two VMware Server hosts. The machine has 3 partitions on one disk.

I have never done any P2V and there appears to be lots of different ways to do it.

I have kinda narrowed it down to either buying a copy of Ghost (2003 I guess) and then using the VMware Server import tool. Or using the VMware Converter beta, but I'm a little wary if doing a clone of a live machine, and the boot CD only appears to be a cost option?

Advice and opinions gratefully received.

IDE ---> SCSI; inaccessible_boot_device ???

Dusan Ignjatovic — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:54:31 GMT

Here's my situation: I've P2V'ed an IDE HDD to a VM that is using the LSI SCSI driver. The OS is Windows 2000 Pro. Can anyone tell me how I can get the VM to use the correct driver?? ANY help would be appreciated since I've tried just about everything I can think of!! Thanks in advance.

No mouse or keyboard after P2V

mcsnott — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 08:44:30 GMT

I've used Converter to do a P2V on a windows 2003 std physical server.

The VM starts but ends at the logon promt with a service not started error and both keyboard and mouse not working.

I'm trying to start the VM within workstation 5.5

Any ideas?

VI3 NIC Driver(s)

GlenMarquis2 — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:31:51 GMT

Hi,

1. appears as though some VMs use a 'VMware PCNET NIC Driver" in Windows and others are using Intel Pro 1000+ MT Driver, why is this?
I am not sure about the physical hardware, why Intel Pro and not the old AMD/PCNET driver??

2. What driver is good for DOS?

Thanks,
Glen.

Help! About P2V Assistant support 64Bit

AppleII — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:44:12 GMT

Hi,

anyone know if P2V assistant support 64bit applications migrate?

My customer is doing P2V testing, from a 64bit old server migrate to a ESX server (64bit too), but it wasnt successful, both of ServerHW & SW in our support matrix, and using the newest version P2V assistant v2.1.2.

Thanks!

P2V with AX150i

Fransiscus — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 02:59:48 GMT

What is problem if I need P2V program connet to AX-150i ?

I use Sql Server 2005 and Oracle Database , Please help ....

Thanks
Frans.

P2V for DRP

Tibmeister — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:28:16 GMT

This may not be the right forum. Basically, here's what I'm looking at doing. For normal use, one of our servers needs alot of horsepower, so it is on a physical machine. What I would like to do use "replicate" it off-site to a VM so that in an emergancy, I would have a "snapshot" of this physical server in a VM. In this scenerio, the VM wouldn't need the normal horsepower because it wouldn't have the usage in a normal situation. But right now the stratagy is to have hardware shipped in and restore tape backups to this server. So one server can take 2 days to bring back on-line in an emergency.
Just wondering on gathering thoughts and how to leverage the VI3 system to do this.

P2V - starter (25 migrations)

joliv — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:04:52 GMT

Anybody knows how P2V Assistant keeps track of # migrations ?

If a user makes a mistake and wants to "remake" a migrations, does the # migartions decrease ?

Rgds

Getting Ghost to run in a Virtual Machine

Sticky — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:13:14 GMT

Does anyone know if there are specific switches required to get Ghost 8.2 to run in a virtual machine. I am using the BartPE boot disk and Ghost 8.2

When I try to restore an image either the process hangs or the Virtual Machine reboots.

Golden

w2k pro to VM with converter - can't find disk in VM

MussonT — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 17:20:20 GMT

I just ran VMware Converter (e.x.p build-33128) on a w2k machine to Import, then Configure.

When I try to open the new VM, all I get is
NTLDR is missing
Press any key to restart

Any suggestions?

I didn't get any errors when I did the Import then Configure.
VMware Workstation I am running is current.

Adaptec 2400 IDE RAID5 with P2V Assistant ??

hlygrail — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 21:34:24 GMT

I know this is a long shot, but I need to migrate a very reliable but aging\^H^H\^H^H^H well-aged Pentium3-based server that is running an Adaptec 2400A IDE-based RAID5 array controller. The array is small by today's standards (4x80GB, or ~224GB usable), and I could move the data store to a single disk elsewhere. This box does a lot of different jobs (mail, web, FTP, monitoring, etc.) though, and I was hoping to be able to migrate the entire system into a VM and retire the hardware.

It's definitely not on the list of supported hardware (nor did I expect it would be), but I thought I'd ask anyway to see if anyone's found it workable.

Linux manual P2V with rsync, changing partition layout for new VM.

alexluch — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:03:30 GMT

I'd like to share a method I used to P2V Linux servers in our environment - we are running Redhat EL 3 Update 7. Feel free to use this as a baseline and modify as needed to suit your needs.

I needed to change partition map from 6 partitions to 3, so I chose not to use any disk/partition imaging techniques. And I like rsync better then tar/cpio.
I tried the latest version of Platespin PowerConvert (6.5) but it didn't provide adequate support for Linux migrations and wasn't flexible enough for our needs.

We have a LUN shared between our ESX servers named vmlun1. New VMs are assigned 1 IP interface and 1 disk.

I created a P2V VM to build new VM disks because I'm lazy and like copy/pasting the config files, and RHEL 3 rescue mode doesn't include ssh server so I can't ssh in for that. But it's your choice, as long as you can boot from your distro of choice CD's rescue mode or Live CD. I couldn't use Knoppix since it has LVM2 and RHEL3 only supports LVM1.
P2V VM name is qap2vvm1, directory for new VM filesystems is /newroot.

So, here are the steps required to successfully P2V RHEL OS instance.

Add new disk to p2v VM:
Stop qap2vvm1.
Edit settings to add as Hard Disk: Select Create New, set size, keep default datastore.
Boot p2v vm.

Setup disk partitions:
SSH into p2v vm. Make sure OS can see the new disk:

# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table.

Partition the disk:
Create 100m boot partition (mark it as bootable) and allocate the rest to LVM volume. LVM type value is 8e.
Write partition table to disk, verify:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 100 803218+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 101 1305 9679162+ 8e Linux LVM

Configure LVM for on new disk:
Remove rootvg from previous install:
rm -rf /dev/rootvg

Create VG for new VM:
# vgcreate rootvg /dev/sdb2

Verify successful creation:
# vgdisplay rootvg

Create swap, root and log volumes:
# lvcreate -L2048m -nlogvol rootvg

Find out how much space is left for rootvol:
--- Volume group ---
VG Name rootvg
VG Access read/write
VG Status available/resizable
VG # 1
MAX LV 256
Cur LV 2
Open LV 0
MAX LV Size 2 TB
Max PV 256
Cur PV 1
Act PV 1
VG Size 9.19 GB
PE Size 32 MB
Total PE 294
Alloc PE / Size 96 / 3 GB
Free PE / Size 198 / 6.19 GB
VG UUID yGZ7Al-khGP-Qntj-iHoA-Q0jv-S5zq-1wJp3f

Use Free PE value to determine root volume size:
# lvcreate -l198 -nrootvol rootvg

Run lvscan to verify new volumes:
# lvscan
lvscan -- ACTIVE "/dev/rootvg/swapvol" [1 GB]
lvscan -- ACTIVE "/dev/rootvg/logvol" [2 GB]
lvscan -- ACTIVE "/dev/rootvg/rootvol" [6.19 GB]
lvscan -- ACTIVE "/dev/rootvg1/swapvol1" [1 GB]
lvscan -- ACTIVE "/dev/rootvg1/rootvol1" [8.78 GB]
lvscan -- 5 logical volumes with 18.97 GB total in 2 volume groups
lvscan -- 5 active logical volumes

Create new filesystems:
# mkswap /dev/rootvg/swapvol

Mount new directories:
# mount /dev/rootvg/logvol /newroot/var/

Copy the data using rsync:
Temporarily assign a known root password to a source server
On qap2vvm server run the following:

# rsync -e ssh -avH --exclude "home/" --exclude "mnt/" --exclude "proc/" --exclude "tmp/" --exclude "lost+found/ --exclude "var/audit.d/" --exclude "var/log/audit.d/" servername:/* .

Restore root password on a source server.

Prepare copied system for VMware:
# cp fstab fstab.orig

Modify fstab to look like follows:

/dev/rootvg/rootvol / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/rootvg/logvol /var/log ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/rootvg/swapvol swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0

Backup modules configuration:
# mv /newroot/etc/modules.conf /newroot/etc/modules.conf.orig

Modify /newroot/etc/modules.conf:

alias eth0 pcnet32
alias scsi_hostadapter mptscsih

Modify grub.conf:
# vi grub.conf

boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (2.4.21-40.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-40.EL ro root=/dev/rootvg/rootvol
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-40.EL.img

Modify /newroot/boot/grub/device.map (If you don't do this and it doesn't match you'll get Disk does't exist in BIOS error from grub-install):
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda

Change hostname:
Add/edit IP/hostname in /etc/hosts
Modify hostname in /etc/sysconfig/network.

Label the /boot partition:
# e2label /dev/sdb1 /boot

Shutdown the p2v VM:
# shutdown -h now

Move drive to new VM:

From the GUI edit p2v VM and remove Hard Disk 2 from configuration. Do not change default (Remove from VM).
SSH to the ESX host for this new VM, cd to /vmfs/volumes/vmlun1/p2vvm1.
Rename disk for new VM:
# vmkfstools -E qap2vvm1.vmdk newvmname.vmdk use name for new VM+.vmdk

Create a new VM in the qa1 Resource Pool under QACluster
Select the following options:
Custom
Name VM appropriately: newvmname for example
Select the host to be a primary host for that VM
Choose vmlun1 for a datastore
OS: Linux, RedHat Enterprise Linux 3
CPUs: 1
Memory: whatever is appropriate
NICS to connect: 1, vmnet10-1, Connect at Power On checked
I/O Adapters: LSI Logic
Use an existing virtual disk
Specify moved disk's path: vmlun1 > p2vvm1 > newvmname.vmdk
Accept defaults for device Node and Mode
Click Finish

Move virtual disk together with new VM:
# mv /vmfs/volumes/vmlun1/p2vvm1/newvmname* /vmfs/volumes/vmlun1/newvmname/
Edit VM configuration to remove current disk and add it from new location
In the edit window specify CD-ROM drive to point to Datastore ISO file at:
vmlun1 > ISO > rhel-3-u7-i386-as-disc1.iso
Check Connect at power on checkbox

Prepare new VM for booting in new environment:
Open a console for newly created VM. Power it on and press F2 at virtual BIOS screen.You may need to hit Reset to get to that screen after initial power on.
Go to Boot menu and move CD-ROM to 2nd position.
Exit saving changes.

VM will boot from Redhat CD1.
Type linux rescue at the boot: prompt.
Press Continue when asked whether to mount existing filesystems.
At the shell prompt use df to see which filesystems have been mounted.
You should see /, /boot and /var/log mounted at /mnt/sysimage
Copy current devices to VM /dev directory:
# rsync -avH /dev /mnt/sysimage/

Change your root directory to new root:
# chroot /mnt/sysimage

Make sure mount and device information is correct:
# fdisk -l

Install the bootloader into MBR:
# grub-install /dev/sda
You should see Installation finished. No errors reported message.

Recompile initrd with new drivers:
# mkinitrd -v -f initrd-2.4.21-40.EL.img 2.4.21-40.EL

You can also use chkconfig to disable services that you don't want to come up upon reboot if they need to be reconfigured for new environment.

Edit VM configuration, in CD-ROM section uncheck Connect at power on checkbox.
Exit both shells to initiate a reboot.

VM should boot the OS from a hard drive now.
Watch boot screen for any errors, wait for Kudzu screen.
Press any key to access Kudzu configuration.
Remove configuration for previous physical hardware.
Configure PCnet32 with appropriate IP information.
Configure LSI Logic 53c1030.
Configure any other software new to the OS.

Optionally you can boot to single user mode and run Kudzu manually.

At this point OS should be completely booted to default runlevel and present a login prompt.
Login with the password you set on the source server and proceed with application reconfiguration.

P2V Windows 2003 Standard server with OEM license

CGalloway — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:05:27 GMT

Hello all...I would like to P2V a Windows 2003 Standard server with an OEM license. I have a Windows 2003 Volume License key ready for the new VM. My question is....what is required when the new VM is booted up for the first time? I assume I will be prompted to activate the existing license because of the hardware change...how do I change to the volume license key? Can I just contact Microsoft at that point and get a different activation code? Thank you for any assistance.

Message was edited by:
CGalloway

Virtual to Virtual of a Microsoft Virtual Machine

keitha — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:52:52 GMT

Hi,

Has anyone successfully virtualized a MS Virtual Machine? I've tried different methods, ghost and P2V assistant, P2V Boot CD and P2V assistant. The MS Virtual Machines are differencing disk pointing to a sysprep on the server hard disk.......I was able to ghost the MS VM Image and pull that to an empty VM before running the P2V assistant but got the BSOD for 'ntoskernel' error.

I copied the scsiport.sys file from the W2k iso in Windows recovery console to c:\winnt\system32\drivers and it still blue screened.

Also I tried the new version of VM Importer and it failed again because of the differencing disks on the MS VM's.

Any suggestions, is the V to V of differencing disk even possible?

Thanks!!

Acronis True Image to Converter ?

atakacs — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 06:31:57 GMT

Folks

Is it ok to use an Acronis True Image with VMWare Converter ? I might have missed it but could not locate this in the documentation...

Thanks & regards

alex

BSOD every 12th minutes

idle-jam — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 11:56:16 GMT

Hello All,

I've just P2V a Win2k with SP4. The P2V process went smoothly. I'm able to boot up the virtual machines and install vmtools and uninstall all manufacturer applications.

However right at the every 12th minute i will get a BSOD saying Registry_Error 0X000051. I did a search in MS KB and they recommendation would be to roll back the last good configuration or restore any backup registry. I do not think it helps as the last registry are a copy of the physical machine and not those of virtualized.

Any idea what went wrong? Thanks in advance.

regards,
Daniel

5 Minute Timeout

Lobmeyer — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:06:05 GMT

Using P2V Assistant 2.1.2...

I'm using the cloning functionality and I get excellent tranfer speeds across my Gb network... for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I the transfer speed drops to about 10-15Kb/sec. After another 5 minutes, the transfer speed picks up again to about 5-7Mb/sec. This happens continuously until the data transfer is completed. I've checked both the ESX side and the source physical machine that is booted to the P2V boot CD and I've found no collisions, drops, etc. All looks good from that perspective.

Also, when running the P2V wizard within the source physical box, I chose eth2 as my adapter and grabbed a DHCP address. I then pointed the P2V Assistant from the helper VM to eth2's obtained address. Yet, when I run a netstat -i from the source physical server, it shows that I'm transferring data via eth0. Very strange...

Has anyone seen this type of (dis)functionality?

Many thanks,
Rob

Beta Issues

MrJamesAnderson — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 19:35:04 GMT

Noticed a couple of things while using the Beta

- If the conversions get cancelled on closure of the console - unable to reconnect and re-establish conversion. Restart of target machine [where agent is] is required.

Starting Caldera DR-DOS error

mortetnma — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 13:55:59 GMT

booting from the p2v boot disk on a IBM thinkpad x40 I get the following error message:

EMM386: Cannot find an unused 64 kilobyte rage of upper memory to use for an EMS page frame. Using FRAME=NONE.
Frame=NONE

It's a firsttimer (p2v) and I'm not too string in Caldera...

Please help.

P2V Boot CD

Alexvi — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 03:11:59 GMT

Can someone tell me how to make P2V Boot CD?

Thanks,
Alex

P2V a Windows NT 4 SP6, but the partitions are now marked "unknown" in VM

scheuri — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 09:42:48 GMT

Dear all of you

First: I am using a german version of Windows NT 4, so sorry if my english descriptions of tools is not appropriate.

I used P2V Version 2.1.2 to clone a Windows NT SP6 running on a Server with ATA-RAID 1 (Fasttrak 100).

I can actually boot the new VM on VMware Server 1.0.1 as planned and using the Explorer inside the VM it says there is (correctly) a C:\ and a D:\ which is perfectly correct.

However, if I am using the inbuild "disk management utility" it says there is a device 0 (correct) with two partitions which are actually "unknown" (german: "unbekannt"). If I right click them it actually gives me the option to "break the mirroring(?)".

I presume that has to do with the Fasttrak still telling my Windows NT that it is on RAID1.
But I just can not say for sure.

I tried the following:
1) Deactivate all devices and services that might be related to fasttrak -> No change
2) Upgraded Virtual Machine from v3 (made with P2V) to v4 (VMware Server 1.0.1) -> No change
3) Breaking the mirroring and reboot -> Bluescreen and Loop
5) Breaking the mirroring, shutdown, attached the device on a "helper vm" with p2v installed, reconfigured the device with P2V, booted that device again -> did not work, however, the "helper" vm saw correct partitions in the "management utility"
6) booted a DOS-floppy and made an fdisk /mbr on the VM -> no result

How can I make my windows disk management utility see the partitions as NTFS (as they actually are) instead of seeing them as "unknown" in my newly cloned VM of a Windows NT 4 with RAID 1 (Fasttrak 100)?
Breaking the mirror on the pyhsical machine is not an option...

Do you need any kind of information? let me know!! I will gladly provide you with it

thanks a lot
stefan

Netfinity 7000 with NT4

rickyv — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 13:17:34 GMT

Did anyone have successfully transferred this from physical to vmware?

Thanks,
Ricky

Dynamic Disk issue

daniel_uk — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:00:09 GMT

Hi,

Im trying to P2V a RAID5 Volume and it comes up with the following;

"The disk is a pure dynamic disk and cannot be opened. The application can only access a dynamic disk that is bootable and was converted from a basic disk"

Do i boot onto the Windows install and make the partition bootable with disk manager?

Ta

Dan

No disk signature was found on the disk of Virtual machine after P2V

Patricia1001 — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:05:24 GMT

I am using P2V Assistant 2.1.2.
I cloned the image file using the Acronis True Image.

No disk signature was found on the disk of Virtual machine after P2V.
The Windows NT guest OS displays the attached message when start a disk administrator tools.
Why there is no disk signature on the disk of virtual machine after P2V?

The messages is follows as:

No signature found on Disk 0.Writing a signature is a safe operation and will not affect your ability to access this disk from other operating systems, such as DOS.

If you choose not to write a signature, the disk will be marked OFF-LINE and be inaccessable to the Windows NT Disk Administrator program.

Do you want to write a signature on Disk 0 so that Disk Administrator can access the drive?

Message was edited by:
Patricia1001

PV2 Import XP sp2 Fails: P2VError UNKNOWN_METHOD_FAULT

hcw — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:40:39 GMT

Every time I try to import a running XPsp2 machine it runs for 30min and then fails and deletes all of the destnation files.

Looking at the size of the .vmdk files it seems like it is very close to being done when it fails.

Here is the tail of the log file:

[2006-11-14 23:30:12.058 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,868] Remote task VmiImportTask::task{45} completed
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.058 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,429] Waiting for updates from VmiImportTask::task{45}
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.068 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,738] Got an update from VmiImportTask::task{45}
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.068 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,504] Cleaning up remote task VmiImportTask::task{45}
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.088 '[imageProcessingTaskWrapper,1155] Disposing task wrapper for task VmiImportTask::task{45}
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[task,234] Task failed: P2VError UNKNOWN_METHOD_FAULT(sysimage.fault.CloneFault)
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[task,278] Transition from InProgress to Failure requested
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[task,327] Transition succeeded
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[jobManager,1206] Job 2 failed: import failed
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[job,206] Job 2 changing state from 1 to 2
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[serialization,210] Serializing job 2
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.108 '[serialization,217] Archiving job to C:\Documents and Settings\oldcomp\Application Data\VMware\p2v30\jobs\00000002.xml
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.118 '[jobManager,179] Raising event 2 for job 2
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.118 '[jobManager,179] Raising event 6 for job 2
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.128 'Shutting down VMDB service...
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.128 'Unregistering callback...
[2006-11-14 23:30:12.128 '...done
[2006-11-15 20:21:59.093 '[p2vSupport,141] Shutting down App

P2V Move

san4360 — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:09:40 GMT

Hi,

Need help on a P2V move. We have ESX2.5.x and planning to move 2 Physical server running Windows 2003 SP1 on HP Blade 20P G3. I have downloaded P2V Assistant 2.1.2 and the P2Vboot CD..

Now how do I proceed and can I retain the IP assigned to the Physical Server now after the move ?

Can someone please let me know the setp by step process to move.

Appreciate your help .

Thanks

San

Estimated Release Date For VMware Converter

edgett — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:56:41 GMT

Does anyone know the estimated release date for VMware Converter?

Message was edited by:
edgett

P2V Windows XP using P2V 2.1.2

rock0n — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:06:50 GMT

Hello there,

I just want to check if my problem is a problem or just the way how to do it...

My Way of doing the P2V

- Back in VC chage the VM controller to buslogic an boot the VM succesfully

is it the normal way to change the controller to buslogic?

best regards

Really confused.

casit@casit.net — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:54:28 GMT

I ran p2v on a machine here in the office. Now how do I get the .vmdk file to the esx server and then how do I get the esx server to know that the vmdk file is a virtual machine? In p2v I told it to make the image for esx.

P2V to be used with VMWare server

d_kpmg — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:36:55 GMT

Hi,
Did anyone used P2V as follows:
1.Clone the disk without modifications (with the option of reconfiguring later) - after that step, the .vmdk file is produced.
2.Start P2V assistant again and choose "Perform a system reconfiguration on the existing virtual disk that contains an operating system". In the options for "Target Vmware product/ virtual hardware", the VMWare Server (free to download from vmware site) is not included.

I was thinking not to perform step 2 (since I only have VMware server) - but instead, use the .vmdk from step 1 to create a virtual machine on the VM Server.

Did anyone followed this scenario and with what results?

Many thanks,
D.

Converter support

sfrank8734 — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 18:59:55 GMT

Sorry to post this here, but I'm at a loss as where to go. I've got the converter beta, but I cannot get into any support. I have no current support on other products but am trying out the Converter beta and having some difficulties. I cannot get into a converter forum either, so I couldn't provide any feedback to help beta test the application anyway? Anyone from VMware care to comment? Thanks!

New Versions of PowerConvert and PowerRecon

Patrick_student — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 01:28:37 GMT

New Features of PowerRecon and PowerConvert

New levels of integration between the two products allow customers to automatically create an optimal consolidation plan with PowerRecon that can be seamlessly transferred to PowerConvert for implementation.

PowerConverts live transfer functionality enables customers to migrate a physical server into a consolidated virtual environment or vice-versa, without having to take it off line. The live transfer feature also includes application-level control so the data can be captured with integrity. Accelerated and uninterrupted migrations mean added ROI for the consolidation initiative.

Unlike standard P2V tools, PowerConverts Virtual-to-Physical capability makes it possible for customers to continuously adjust and right size to ensure an optimal pairing of server software and data center infrastructure.

Stream OS and applications in any direction between virtual infrastructures, including VMware, Microsoft, and Virtual Iron.

Supports the movement of Microsoft Windows, Red Hat, and SuSE Linux based servers.

PowerRecon enables users to collect data from multiple geographically-dispersed data center sites and aggregate and analyze it holistically to build server consolidation scenarios that optimize resources across the data center.

EISA Management Partition

fordian — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:47:15 GMT

Hi,

We have a Proliant 3000 with a 36 mo Compaq Partition Management, a Windows NT4 fat partition and a Windows NT4 NTFS partition.

Running P2V client on the P2VHelper (NT4 VM) :
At the last step before the operation begins we have the following message : "The disk has diagnostic partitions and cannot be mounted"
"Detect Volumes failed".

Any ideas ?

Thank you

Dominic.

symmpi.sys !

Jack Colt — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 15:44:10 GMT

Hi everyone !
i used a BartPe boot cd, i followed Qui Hong's FixVM-SCSI document...
my ESX Server 2.5 is on HP DL 360 g4.

i achieved all the instructions, but at the very end, when i reconfigured my VM (with an XP pro OS), i can see in the console :
Copying symmpi.inf to C:\Windows\inf folder
1 file(s) copied
Copying symmpi.sys to C:\Windows\system32\drivers
acces denied

why is the acces denied ? what can i do ?
i think that's why my VM doesn't boot as well.....
i searched answers but i did not find, i still do.....help me please.
Thank's

Machine does not boot after P2V

gillesMo — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 08:54:36 GMT

I found a problem, and a solution in my case.

In response to these old threads :
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=82504&#82504
http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=316436&#316436

I found this discussion :
http://techrepublic.com.com/5254-6257-0.html?forumID=99&threadID=182138&messageID=2092323&id=4178302

It seems that some disk controllers (physical ones, like HP Smart Array in my case) present their disks to the OS with a particular geometry.
-> 32 sectors by cylinder instade of 63 for most of the times.

A vmware virtual disk (with vmware server in my case) has a geometry of 63 sectors.

After cloning, the MBR and partition boot record don't point to the right area.
Sadly, MS windows fixmbr and fixboot don't succeed in repairing that.
They even rendered my partiton empty !

For cloning, I use Drive Image XML, and it show the start sector of the disk, either 32 or 63. With it, I can know if I have to modify something.

One problem remains for me :
How to determine easily the geometry, directly from Windows ?

I have supposed that changing sectors from 63 to 32 make cylinders doubling.

keyboard & mouse issue after P2V on IBM Blade center (HS20) : THE solution

RS_1 — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:03:05 GMT

hi, i spent a lot of time trying to found a solution to get a good P2V on a IBM HS20 and in fact, found the good one.

After finished the P2V process, boot the new VM with ERD commander or anything else that give you access to Windows devices drivers and services.
Then, swith HID mouse and keyboard driver from "boot" to "system".
Do the same for keyboard and mouse class driver (anything to "system")
After, if you installed it, disable all IBM services/

http://list.schitz.net/blade/erd_01.gif
http://list.schitz.net/blade/erd_02.gif
http://list.schitz.net/blade/erd_03.gif

Then, boot the VM (i'll get only the keyboard working, don't ask me why) and install VMTools !

that's all folks

RS

P2V Error Loading Hive / Access is denied (5) error

Michael_IBM — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:45:49 GMT

Hi Guys, can someone help me with this problem.

I am trying to P2V two W2K3 servers from a W2k3 helper VM.

I have done it successfully from the w2k3 helper and a W2K VM, but can't get it to work with W2k3 VM's

Basically, the first time I try to P2V, it appears to be "working", then the application just closes with no error message.

From that point onwards, if I run it, i get the message
"System Reconfiguration Failed: Cannot load system hive. (error loading hive: Access is denied (5))"

I also get a dr watson in the event viewer.

I have googled this problem and searched the forum but nothing I have tried has worked.

I can view the drives from the helper, can write to it, delete files..etc.

I have also tried removing the drive letter from within disk manager to no avail.

I have tried logging onto the helper as a domain admin and also as a local admin which is the same as the vm (except the machine name obviously).

Sometimes I also get this message when I run P2V
"Warning, could not cleanly dismount volume 1.....access is denied...etc"

So does anyone have any ideas ?

I am running 2.0.3 by the way.

Please help..i'm getting desperate

Keyboard and Mouse not working after P2V image on IBM Blade Centre

paijen — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 02:17:33 GMT

Hi There,

I am trying to perform cloning from physical server to VMware ESX 3.0 image using P2V.

The image is created successfully without any error. However when trying to run the Virtual Machine created, keyboard and moused don't work. There is no response at all.

I am running on IBM Blade Centre H20 Chassis. Some servers work fine but some don't.

would appreciate someone out there to help me on this issue. Thks.

Short Filename Change

Dan_Dada22 — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 16:07:30 GMT

While trying to get a disk cloned, I get the following weeor at the end of the cloning process:

P2V Assistant encountered minor issues while copying some files;
- 196 files have changed short file names (8.3 DOS names)

Some of those issues might not be serious. For more information, please inspect the following logs: - volume2-NoLabel-NTFS-17320MB-10.30.2006-28.50.log

Those logs are in the following directory:
C:\temp

Does anyone know why this happens and do I need to re-copy those files?

Drive Not Found

AustinPowers — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 20:47:57 GMT

We tried to use P2V to create a source image, but it did not find the hard drive in a Dell PowerEdge. Controller is an LSI Logic SATA RAID, contains 3 drives RAID 5. Also tried Ghost v8 with BartPE boot disk, but Bart could not find it either. Even after we added the driver for the LSI controller and recreated the Bart boot CD, still did not find the drive.

Any suggestions?

NEW P2V Beta Program

ZippyDaMCT — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 11:13:08 GMT

Has anyone else downloaded this yet? I have the binaries but where do I get the boot CD?

Weird!

Video: vdiskmanager as ghost32 replacement on BartPE

continuum — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:11:57 GMT

@ Mike - instead of a step by step documentation just watch it

@all

I created a 20 MB zipped video that explains how I use vmware-vdiskmanager on BartPE to do ghostlike - imaging.
I did not use any automatic functions so that you can follow the steps ...

Task:

Image a 30Gb disk with Windows into a VMserver via Network

(the VMserver is on 10.0.0.11 and offers a share named pub)

The steps in short ...

boot BartPE
configure network
mount the share on \\10.0.0.11\pub as driveletter Q:\
create a new VM
add a rawdisk for disk0 and safe it as R:\temp\raw-disk.vmdk
run the vdiskmanager with -r option and convert into a split disk we safe in Q:\

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This procedure maybe slower as ghost32 - but it safes you one step as no restoring of a *gho image into a vmdk is necessary!

To view the movie you need a box with VMware Workstation to be able to view the VMware-codec ...

http://sanbarrow.com/vdiskmanager-as-ghost.zip

Ulli

Help with migrating an OLD server

panlion — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 17:41:48 GMT

We are trying to migrate an old Dell Power Edge 2300 with Perc 2/SC RAID Card. The Perc 2 SC card is based on MegaRAID 466 which is unsupportedby Knoppix and therefore P2V. I really don't want to reinstall the software on this computer that is windows 2000 based on a new computer. What option do I have in migrating this server to a Virtual Machine?

P2V a FreeBSD

Sandakan — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 05:37:39 GMT

Greetings everyone,

How could I P2V a FreeBSD box to VM?

Understand the P2V is not capable to do so, do you have an alternative way?

Sincerely,
Way

Manual P2V Linux

honus — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:16:56 GMT

Manual P2V linux instructions found here

http://www.vmwiz.com

P2V 2.1.1 Boot CD - Forcing NIC Speed and Duplex

dcknittle — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:03:23 GMT

I was struggling to force NIC speed and duplex with P2V 2.1.1 boot CD. Running 'sudo ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 duplex full' did not have any effect.

The solution:

Open new shell or linux console. By default, you will be logged in as user knoppix.

Run su to switch to user root. No password required.

You should now see the following prompt:
root@2[knoppix]#

Run mii-tool to show nic device(s) negotiation speed and duplex.

Run either ethtool or mii-tool utility to force the NIC speed and duplex.

Example - to force the NIC to 100/FULL, run:

mii-tool -F 100baseTx-FD eth0

Deleted vmdk config file

sgrigg — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:56:54 GMT

I did a P2V and had no problems...I attached the hard drive to a new VM and it booted just fine. I wanted to move the two vmdk files (One is 20GB and the other is very small) into the same directory as the new VM. In doing so, I erred and deleted (I know!) the small vmdk file and can now no longer boot to the hard disk. I am guessing that the small vmdk file was a config file for the disk image. Is there any way to get this file back or do I have to do the P2V again?

Thanks!

Netware 5.1

RMichael — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:44:12 GMT

I have an old HP Server running Netware 5.1 that I would like to Virtualise before upgrading to OES 6.5. I've tried with V2Assist and it says the partition type is unformated. Does anyone have any ideas how I could do this? I'm having to use the 2.03 boot CD and tools because 2.1 didn't load my Megaraid controllers on the server and the Helper crashed on my IBM 345.

Any help would be very much appreciated. I'm trying to prove the value of VMWare and this is my second try and I'm not having too much luck. Are there any tricks I can try?

The Disk has no active partion, therefore no operating system could ...

Patricia1001 — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:07:37 GMT

I have a Windows NT Server 4.0 SP6a and I get the following message using P2V Assistant 2.1.2.

"The Disk has no active partion, therefore no operating system could be detected".

I have two physical disks.

Disk1 - drive C: and E:
Disk2 - drive F:

I want to take clone of drive F:.

I confirmed the P2V 2.1.2 Release Notes.
I do not know what the following meant.

'P2V Assistant successfully clones a data disk that has no active partition'.

Why I cannot take clone of drive F: on a physical disk2 that has no active partition.

NTLDR missing after P2V migration

acausemaker — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:25:02 GMT

I used P2V to move a Win2K3 server to VMWare ESX 3.0.0... after the original migraion, the VM booted up fine. But then we rebooted the host, and now when we try to power on the VM we get "NTLDR missing".

If I browse the datastore, the VMDK file the VM is configured to use is still located in the original Helper machine's folder, NOT in the new VM's folder. I think I need to move the VMDK file to the new VM's folder, but I can't figure out how to do that.

i.e: the path for the new VM's hard drive is {storage1} /XP Pro/XP Pro_1.vmdk (which is my XP Pro helper machine)

but is SHOULD be {storage1}/NEWVM/nameofvm.vmdk

TIA for any suggestions.

Two CPU to One (and back again)

Wimo — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:42:25 GMT

There are other threads on this I know, forgive the duplication...

We are P2Ving a whole slew of DL380s over the next couple of months. Almost all of them are dual CPU. I think most are Windows 2003, the rest 2000. Our SOP is to give all but database servers 1 vCPU.

So I have it in my instructions to go in and change the HAL to StandardPC (2003) or Uniprocessor (2000) immediately after bringing up the new VM, before any reboots.

How necessary is this? Is there a difference between the 2 OSes as far as how they and ESX handle it? A difference in ESX versions? We're on 3.0 and 3.0.1.

Also, we had one where we had to add back a 2nd CPU after the conversion. In device manager, that one now says StandardPC twice, obviously once for each vCPU. How best to handle that?

Mouse and keyboard problems after going virtual

jaycandon@yahoo.com — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:46:03 GMT

I have a Windows XP host that should now command a Windows XP guest that was recently converted to a virtual machine. The cursor no longer responds and keyboard input does nothing.

I'm assuming this has something to do with drivers, but I've used the P2V reconfiguration tool, so...

Is it something obvious?

P2V 2.1 Issue. Windows 2003, Citrix Pres 4. Symantec Livestate smegina.dll

dubplate — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:33:53 GMT

Hello,

I tried to P2V a Windows 2003 sp1 Citrx Pres Server 4 enterprise server last night with no luck at all.

I have P2V'ed Citrix Pres Servers before, but this one simply wouldnt go, although its close.

P2V'ed successfully, after modifing boot.ini.

then upon bootup, the windows server comes up with...

User Interface Failure
c:\_integra\bin\smegina.dll failed to load

replace or restore the original DLL.

tryed to boot into safe mode....

the server hangs on file

acpitabl.dat

read a post up here, replaced update.sys with no joy.

read these KB's

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/on-technology.nsf/0437f27e11eaa7ef88256ebb0049cfe6/526ac90b281a603088256e5f0078b556?OpenDocument&src=bar_sch_nam%20

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX110891&parentCategoryID=617

I am going to have another crack at this soon, but though possibly others had seen the issue?

Thanks,

Ultimate P2V

Gaprofitt — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:41:35 GMT

When using the Ultimate P2V method, how do you add network drivers on the physical machine side, no nics are found when booting with the cd.

Thank,

Greg

P2V not finding Hard Drives

chad.sanders — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 13:52:07 GMT

I am using the p2v boot cd version 2.1.2 and trying to migrate a HP Net Server LP2000R. Has anyone had any success doing this. When I boot up it tells me to disable PnP in the bios which I am assuming is Plug-n-Play, but I cannot find where to do this in the bios. It will eventually boot up and find the NICs but does not list any Hard Drives. I have updated the firmware on the NetRaid1M controller, but p2v still does not see the drives. I am new to p2v so any help would be greatly appreciated.

VMware Converter Beta

UKsubnet — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 15:24:53 GMT

I have successfully imported several server and workstation images, however on a particular server it gives me an error "unablet to determine guest operating system" I have installed then software on the actual server itself to no avail.

There is no firewall software runnig so I don't think it's port blocking, any ideas, The server is Windows 2003 service pack 1 R2, I have imported this vrsion of windows before no problem

Any ideas

P2V Timeline?

AustinPowers — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:55:06 GMT

I'm new to VMware in general, and P2V in particular. We have about a dozen physical machines lined up to migrate to virtual. All are Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server, all have Gigabit NICs, and the migrations will be going thru Gigabit switches. We'll be migrating to an EqualLogic iSCSI SAN.

Most of these servers have 10GB to 50GB to be transferred; three of them have between 100GB and 200GB to be transferred. I'm trying to figure out if we'll be able to do these migrations on weeknights, or will they take longer than 8 hrs each.

Anyone have any ballpark guidelines or personal history on a per-hour average P2V transfer rate?

Getting p2v vmdk onto the VMFS datastore?

John Bergin — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 14:09:04 GMT

Made two p2v test runs. One worked one failed to load BSOD after mounting them in VM Server 1.01. Tried to move the untainted vmdk's from the p2v assistant machine to the vmfs using a putty connection to the SC and then smbclient to pull the vmdk and drop it in.
VMFS file explorer sees the files fine and i did chmod 777 so everyone has rights to them yet when I go to do the custom disk allocation it cannot find the vmdk files that I dropped in while it CAN find any other vmdk that already exists on the server.
Any thoughts?
Server is ESX3.01 in a VC2.01

P2V 1.0 & ESX3

CCtech — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:27:25 GMT

Can I use P2V 1.0 to P2V a machine to ESX 3?

Thanks in advance