Convert Win2000 SP4 -> ESXi (no connection between P->ESXi ..)

[Taz79]

Hello!

I'm not so experienced in the VM sphere.... Actually i installed ESXi 5.0 today! But i have been running ESXi3.5 and Workstation before too..

I have searched for my question but did not find anyone asking the same question as me...

This is what i want to do:

Convert a physical machine (Windows 2000 SP4) to a VM machine to run in ESXi 5.0..

I have downloaded VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0 for this..

The machine i need to convert is at a customer and i have remote access to it and other machines too.. But my problem is that i do not have access to the ESXi server from the physical machine and that seems to be an requirement?? Can anyone help me answer that?

I read somewhere that the converter can also use Acronis images? .. Can I maybe (if above does not work) create an acronis image and convert that one?

Do i need the vCenter for this functionality? Is it free? .. I'm running vSphere Client on my machine atm.

Extra question:

Is the ESXi 5.0 limited to 32GB RAM for the server? It said something like that when i entered my free license code.. I'm running 48GB ram in my server..

Message was edited by: Taz79

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Hello.

The machine i need to convert is at a customer and i have remote access  to it and other machines too.. But my problem is that i do not have  access to the ESXi server from the physical machine and that seems to be  an requirement?? Can anyone help me answer that?

Ideally you would have access to the ESXi host, yes. You can use the Destination Type of "VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine" in Converter and then copy those files to the location where the ESXi 5 host is and run Converter again. You don't need vCenter Server for P2V conversions, and Acronis True Image Echo 9.1, 9.5 and Acronis True Image Home 10 and 11 (.tib) formats are supported, so you could also go that route. Either way, you are looking at a two-step process without access to the ESXi host from the source machine.

32GB is the memory limit for the free ESXi.

Good Luck!

[Taz79]

Thank you for that quick response! I will start to try this right away!

Would you recomend that i install the Converter software directly on the Windows 2000 SP4 (source) computer? Or should i install the program on another server on the same network? Easiest for me is to install it on the same server..

Would i need both Server, Client and Agent to be installed on the Source computer then?

[vmroyale]

I prefer to install the Converter on a separate computer, but it works fine on the source as well. If you install Converter directly on the source computer, then yes install it all there. Remember to remove it, as part of the post-P2V cleanup, once you have the P2V complete.

[Taz79]

I think i will do like you. Install it on a separate computer and only agent on the server itself. To minimize the applications installed on the server...

Thank you!

[POCEH]

Windows 2000 SP4 is not supported in the Converter 5.0

Try with previous version. Check documentation too.

HTH

[Taz79]

I noticed that when i tried to install it on the computer... Thanks! I will look for older versions.

[Taz79]

I tried an earlier version and it worked fine! I got a image for Workstation 6.5 or something. I then run VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0 when i have downloaded the image from the customer and then imported it to ESXi .. It works witout a problem! Thank you