Converter 3.0.1 Causes host Machine to reboot due to Stop error

[mike_wezesa]

This is happening to me when attempting to convert the local machine (HP DL320s W2k3), converter will get to 97% and then all of the sudden my Remote Desktop connection closes and sure enough the server is rebooting. When I log back in it mentions a few stop errors in the "reason for system failure" when I log on, then presents me with the Microsoft "send error report" prompt. When I send the report it then shows "device driver caused a fatal stop error" however that does not help in anyway. I am attempting to write the VM to the 😧 drive on the server which is a storage array if that matters, just a conversion of the system drive c:. I noticed in searching that other people have had issues with the conversion freezing at 97% and them still being able to open the vm (I haven't even tried this yet), but I am concerned as to why it is causing a stop error on my physical machine more so.

[mike_wezesa]

UPDATE: I've tried booting up the VM, it will show the server 2003 screen loading and then BSOD quickly with what looks like the same stop errors that the physical host machine encountered when it was forced to restart during creation of the VM....does this have something to do with the boot.ini file maybe?

[gautam]

Could you get the error code of the stop BSOD on the host? From the eventvwr logs maybe?

[theanykey]

>> attempting to convert the local machine (HP DL320s W2k3), converter will get to 97% and then all of the sudden my Remote Desktop connection closes and sure enough the server is rebooting

If you are using converter 3.0.1, keep in mind that if you select the diagnostic partition for conversion, it may result with a BSOD (stop7b). Reconvert without selecting it.

- If you do have it and you didnt select it and you still get a stop7b, we can mount the .vmdk file to a functional VM and correct the boot.ini file. Afterwards, run converter's "configure machine" wizard on it.

There is a chance the BSOD is videocard related - try safe mode and uninstall the physical videocard drivers.

The logs and the screenshot will help more.

[mike_wezesa]

Here is the screenshot of both the eventvwr system error message, as well as a screen of the VM itself showing the BSOD. I need to retrieve the vm from the datacenter and bring it to our local lan here at work before I can mount it to a working vm.

Also, interesting to note that I am able to run a conversion without error on a local server running w2k3 BUT it's a 1U HP DL320 and not a 2U HP DL320S or 380...something to do with the raid controller or the drive configuration?

[theanykey]

you are looking at a stop7b BSOD .... this can be caused by converting a machine with an EISA partition and using converter 3.0.1, and/or converting a machine such as HP with all it's HP specific bells and whistles (HP network configuration utility, HP drivers, etc). See if you can safe boot the non-bootable VM and remove these items from both device manager and add/remove programs

Seeing your logs would also help:

To do so, simply open up your VMware Converter 3.0 application and choose

File --> Export Logs

[mike_wezesa]

Thanks, so how would I go about a "safe boot" of the non bootable VM? Here are the logs that were written around the time the failure occurred, I didn't look too much but nothign was jumping out at me either...

[theanykey]

according to the logs, you are converting your physical machine to a workstation 5x VM. The interesting thing is it looks like you have a 30gb disk and a 1200gb disk. 1200gb disks are uncommon which leads me to ask if you have software span enabled on the physical?

[mike_wezesa]

The 1200gb "disk" is actually a RAID 5 array which is a backup to disk storage drive, when I am doing the conversion I am not selecting that drive obviously as there are no programs on it.