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cristiaw
Contributor
Contributor

2) Unable to determine Guest Operating System

Hello friends,

I'm using converter 4.0 for to cold clone a windows 7, but this message is displayed.

How I can to solve ?

Please!! i think that i try all !!!

Attach my log files

Thanks in advance,

Christian W

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13 Replies
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal

hi, i could not see any attachment. can you reupload again

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the community.

Specify the version of the Converter.

And check on the documentation if Windows 7 cold conversion is supported.

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Andre,

Does VMware vCenter Converter Boot CD v4.1.1 recognise RHEL5 servers? I want to cold clone my RHEL5 server using the boot CD cold cloning method.

Regards,

George.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

the coldclone CDs do not "detect" Linux systems - so you would have to do the patching part manually


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi, what patching part do you mean??

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

P2V is a 2 steps process.
Step1: Imaging
In this step you read the source machine and create a disk-image of it.
This can be done with lots of tools: Linux dd, Converter, Converter-coldclone-cd, Acronis ...


Step2: Patching
After the diskimage is created and a new VM has been assembled using the vmdk created in step1 you need to adjust drivers inside this diskimage so that the system can boot with the changed hardware.
Again this can be done with several tools. The most straightforward one is a Windows 7 LiveCD or latest Converter.

Were you able to create a VM with the Coldclone CD ?


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Continuum,

I've done literally hundreds of P2V's of Windows servers using VMware Converter. Most of them have been done with the VMware Converter Standalone product doign hot cloning. Some of them were done using the Converter Boot CD cold cloning.

What I'm saying here is that I want to use VMware Converter Boot CD to cold clone P2V a RHEL5 server into my vSphere 5.1 environment. Judging from what you (and others) have written, the Boot CD doesn't look at or care about the OS on the server being P2V'd, right? If that's the case, how does the Converter software on the Boot CD recognise the source server's disks/partitions/file-system - are you saying that it doesn't need to recognise these things because it's just doing a block level copy?

If the Boot CD does need to recognise the server's OS version, my question is:- Is the v4.1.1 of the Boot CD compatible with RHEL5 on the server it's P2V-ing?

Regards,

George.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

if I remember right the 1 first Coldclone CD does not try to understand whats on the disk - I used it to p2v openBSD for example.
The second Coldclone CD versions wants to understand whats on the disk.

As none of them is prepared to patch a Linux system I would first try the first version.

Anyway - if you coldclone a Linux system you will have to adjust drivers, fstab, grub yourself.
With a hotclone Converter will take care of that


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What do you mean by "first" and "second" ColdClone CD's?? I've just got the one Cold Clone boot CD that's got VMware vSphere Converter v4.1.1 on it. I haven't seen any references anywhere that talk about 2 ColdCone CDs. Are you talking about 2 different versions of VMware Converter Boot CD?

As far as adjusting drivers, fstab, grub etc is concerned, I thought that VMware Converter does all this during the "reconfigure VM" stage which happens at the end of the copy process.

George.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

VMware released at least 2 versions of the Coldclone CD - the second one is the version you have .
The MOA Coldclone CD that I make is similar to the first version.

And to say it again - for Linux p2v none of the Coldclone CDs takes care of the "reconfigure part" of the job.

So you either have to use the latest hotclone Converter 5.0.1 or do the reconfiguration manually yourself


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok, thanks for the clariffication Smiley Happy

Unfortunately I cannot hot clone this server because it uses software RAID which unfortunately Converter hot-clone doesn't work with. I tried the hot clone the other day and it failed to even kick-off the conversion.

I'm about to attempt the cold-clone with the v4.1.1 boot CD. I'll let you know how I get on. I've found a couple of documents from different people on how they manually reconfigured their Linux P2V'd VMs, so I'll follow their instructions. I don't really have any Linux expertise Smiley Sad

George.

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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi again,

Unfortunately the cold clone CD did not work. It loaded the network adapter OK and gave it a DHCP address. But when I click on Import Machine, it starts the import wizard and at "step1: Source" I press Next and it then says "Unable to determine Guest Operating System" and does not proceed any further.

I noticed that when I pressed Next, just before the "Unable to determine guest OS" message appears, I can see a message quickly appear and disappear that says something like "checking the operating system". So it appears as though the boot CD is trying to detect the OS on the machine similar to the hot clone method. But everyone's told me that the boot CD does not need to know what OS is on the machine, so I am very confused now.

The machine is a HP Proliant ML115. It contains 2 HDD's that are mirrored by an NVIDIA RAID controller. When I boot the machine up and go into the NVIDIA's BIOS, it tells me "Array1: NVIDIA MIRROR 141.04GB". If I press enter on this it tells me the details of the 2 HDD's.

George.

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gparker
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello once again,

If I try hot cloning this RHEL5 server with Converter Standalone v5.0.1, after I enter the servers hostname and root userid/password, a message comes up saying "Unable to detect disks or volumes on the source machine. Make sure that the source is a supported Linux distribution" and will not proceed any further.

George.

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