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emegen
Contributor
Contributor

problem virtualizing older Windows systems

We are running ESX v3 on our systems and are running into a problem when we virtualize older systems. Many of our older systems were set up with very small C drives (100 MB) larger D drives (6 GB) and then a data drive (20 GB). I cannot virtualize these as is, does anyone have any suggestions about how I could rig these systems up to get them virtual? I’ve kinda hit a brick wall in my thinking, and if there is a way to virtualize these I would like to. Thanks!!

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28 Replies
oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

When using VMware Converter you can resize the disks.

Another option is to resize the disks before / afterwards using an imaging tool (like Ghost)

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emegen
Contributor
Contributor

I thought that either the C drive, or the active drive (not sure which) needs to be over 500 MB to virtualize because it needs to put a snapshot on it, or something like that

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

As oreeh said, the VMware Converter can do this for during the P2V import you if it's a Windows system you are virtualising.

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

Otherwise ghost or some other imaging software to image the data from your old small drive to a new larger virtual disk.

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gogogo5
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I'd be interested to see how you installed Windows into a 100MB C: drive!! What version of Windows are you migrating?

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

Since he speaks about "older" Windows systems it could be NT 3.51 (aargh) or NT 4 with a 100 meg boot partiton.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

NT4 you can still do with the converter, minimum partition size 105MB, a bit tight!

Check out page 18 of this doc: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VMware_Converter_manual301.pdf

I think you might be able to get around this space requirement if you boot from a Converter boot CD though.

As far as NT3.51 goes, no idea, I've never even seen a machine running it! Smiley Happy

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

As far as NT3.51 goes, no idea, I've never even seen a machine running it! Smiley Happy

You must be a lucky guy then! :smileygrin:

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I'm 26 I don't remember anything pre-Win2000 really. :smileygrin:

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gogogo5
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Good point, in fact looking at the PDF only NT4 SP6 is supported, no mention of 3.51.

What SP level are you running on your physicals?

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

Yes you can do 3.5.1.

Also check out this website for more Converter info...

http://vmware-land.com/Converter.html

What are the supported guest operating systems?

The following 32-bit guest operating systems are fully supported by VMware Converter 3: Windows NT, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server

The following 64-bit guest operating systems are fully supported by VMware Converter 3: Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server

Support for the following guest operating systems is Experimental. VMware Converter 3 can clone source images containing these operating systems, but the destination virtual machine may or may not work without additional configuration after import. In particular, if the source image contains unsupported hardware, you may need to modify the configuration of the destination virtual machine before using it: Linux, Windows NT 3.x, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, MS-DOS

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

So you are one of these "youngsters" hanging around in these forum Smiley Wink

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emegen
Contributor
Contributor

these physicals are windows 2000 and some NT4. the C drives are boot partitions that really only have the autoexec and boot files on them, one is as small as 30 Meg! then the D drive would be the OS partion

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Will probably be alright if you boot from a Converter CD.

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Speedbmp
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

kind of makes me want to pull out the NT 3.51 server CD and install it so see it again Smiley Happy

Stephen

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gogogo5
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

just to clarify, does that mean that 3.51 can be done from an "image" i.e. ghost image etc rather than from the agent or boot CD?

VMware Converter 3 can clone source images containing these operating systems

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

NT3.51 actually came on CD!? I expected it to be a stack of 50 or so floppy disks lol. Smiley Happy

gogogo5 - NT3.51 is mentioned in the experimental support section - so I presume the agent/boot cd should work...most of the time.

>Support for the following guest operating systems is Experimental. VMware Converter 3 can clone source images containing these operating systems, but the destination virtual machine may or may not work without additional configuration after import. In particular, if the source image contains unsupported hardware, you may need to modify the configuration of the destination virtual machine before using it: Linux, Windows NT 3.x, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, MS-DOS

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

Not sure, never tried it, The documentation indicates that it should work but it is non-supported (experimental in their words). You can't install Converter on a NT 3.5.1 server so you must use the boot CD. I'm sure if you used a ghost image it will also work since Converter supports that as a import format.

What import formats does Converter support?

Source formats supported include: Physical Machines running supported OS, Microsoft Virtual PC (version 7 and higher), Microsoft Virtual Server (any version), Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery images (also Ghost 9 or higher), VMware Workstation 4.x virtual machine (compatible with VMware GSX Server 3.x), VMware Workstation 5.x virtual machine (compatible with VMware Player and VMware Server 1.x), VMware ESX Server 3.x, VMware ESX Server 3.x (when managed by VirtualCenter 2.x), VMware ESX Server 2.5.x (when managed by VirtualCenter 2.x)

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

I just installed Windows 3.1 on a VMware workstation the other day, I have copies of all the old OS's, I should create a OS museum.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Haha, indeed, a virtual museum! Smiley Happy

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