vCenter Converter

[wizwire]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but for some reason I can't seem to migrate servers via the convert live machine feature anymore. I converted them one direction from server "a" to server "b", completely reloaded server "a" from the latest download available on vmware's site, and now cannot move the vm's back to server "a".

The error is that the target guest helper vm didn't load. Looking at the guest VM that attempts to load, it sits on "Loading filesys........................." for a long time, then just disappears, and the machine is killed and deleted.

Any ideas? Where should I look first? The servers are exactly identical, and the guest VM's do NOT exist on server "a" (where I am attempting to convert back to).

Thanks in advance.

Jamey

WizWire

[wizwire]

Oh, forgot the VM's are CentOS 5.3 (RHEL 5.3 clone).

[wizwire]

Could it be that one server has the stock esxi, and one has the dell customizations?

[wizwire]

I hope this helps someone else avoid hours of headaches...

I was configuring the "Helper VM Network" portion the same as the source machine... we do not have DHCP on this particular network, so I realized I need to have the helper VM have... gasp a different IP. Seems to be working fine now :smileysilly:

[kenwardc]

Hi there, Wizwire

Well.... I'm having the exact same problem but I have given my Helper Server Converter an IP address, subnet mask and gateway. If I open the console on the host for that new machine, I see the "Loading filesys...................." and the standalone converter (running on the same local machine I'm converting) just sits there "Waiting for the target virtual machine to boot up as the Converter helper server". Eventually..... FAILED! Then the new machine on the host is deleted and I start all over again! This is SO annoying.... I hope you can help. <grovel>

Cheers

Chris

[JasonBurrell]

The way I solved the problem was to start the conversion and when it got stuck I shut down the VM then took the .iso file from the

c:\program files (x86)\vmware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\converter-helper-vm-x64.iso directory and loaded it onto a datastore then booted off of it, then the conversion continued as if everything was ok. Hope this helps someone!