Need help to boot a previous Physical Machine partition manually converted to VMDK

[Relok]

I had a problem with an HD that was not in a Healthy State I was able to make a backup in time with Acronis Image Home. The backup was partial, the original Disk had 4 partition (3 primary, bootable partitions and a logical only Data partition), the was a bootmanager to boot respectively Windows 7(1), Windows Vista(2), WindowsXP(3). I made a backup of only W7 partition and the DATA partition.

I didn't need the old Vista and WinxP drives, and that's why I made partial backup, not disk backup.

I want to virtualize the old machine. Using VMware vCenter Converter I wasn't able to convert the tib file, it gave error, probably because that was only a partial backup of first and last partition.

So I chose to follow a different path, I mounted the TIB file, which mounted the two partitions as separate disks, then using EASE Backup, I made a backup of the first(Window 7) partition and converted the image to VMDK using VDDK 5.1.

Now I've created a Workstation 9 VMX(Using VMWARE), which asked me to convert the VMDK to 9.0 version (I said NO). I will also convert the data partition later.

Powering ON the Virtual Machine It booted to the boot manager, but obviously it doesn't work, whatever boot option I choose I get this error:

Status: 0xc000000e

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

If I remember well using VMware converter, the software takes care of the machine conversion including controller drivers used when the machine was installed on the real hardware.

Now I need to solve this problem, and I need advices to make all steps safe and working without any troubles.

For sure Boot sectors and partition table must be updated to reflect a disk with only a partition, and also need to solve the problem of all the drivers installed in the system that could give problem.

I've Windows 7 Install DVD, and tried to fix the boot so now, it identified the Main C: Partition correctly and removed the other partition boot references. The system seem to start but I get a BSOD:

Status: 0x0000007B

I think the problem is related to the IDE drivers or something, how do I correct this problem ?

Relok.

[continuum]

change the controller to lsi-sas
then boot the VM into win7 recovery mode - load the system hive and enable lsi-sas driver in registry

[Relok]

By default these were already inside the VMX(9.0) file.

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"

But when I added the VMDK converted by ETBackup it added as a IDE, so I closed VMWARE, then with notepad++ changed the following inside the VMX
file:

scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0:0.fileName = "MYHD_W7.vmdk"

scsi0:0.redo = "" ---> This was added atuomatcally by the software when booting.Hope that this lsisas1068 is ok,
But how do I add this in the registry of Windows 7 Virtual Machine ?

What is the EXACT HKLM key to create or modify ?

Every Boot option doesn't work (NO SAFE MODE, no anything, NO Repair(gives error 0xc000000e). Still I can use the Windows 7 install DVD and used that to repair the main Boot, but how do I change the registry hive from the shell ?

I've a live DVD so I could open Windows to perform few tests an making modifications, if you know an utility that let me open the HIVE offline and that let me save the info I could try that in alternative to using the shell.

Thanks for your help, hope you can answer soon,
Relok.

[continuum · Accepted solution]

sorry - I am in a hurry and dont have time for long explanations.
Have a look at my site http://sanbarrow.com/p2v2008r2.html
it has a sections "patching - the easy variant"
That applies to win7, 32 and 64 and 2k8r2

Use a recovery CD if the builtin recovery mode can not be launched.

Also make sure your vmx still have the lines
scsi0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"

[Relok]

Worked like a charm, Fixed the Hive and everything went fine, it took a while to load, install new drivers, then I uninstalled any driver that was useless under the VM and installed VMware Tools.

Thanks, that was terribly helpful,
Relok.