Converter Standalone 4.3.0 Issue - Get "the specified parameter was not correct" & no source volumes listed

[dondraper]

Sorry - hopefully an admin can move this to the correct forum. I could find no community forum labeled Converter so no clue where to post this message.

My first time to attempt to use Converter. Using the latest version of Converter 4.3.0 to try a P2V using the source machine. This is a Dell D820 business laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. I am choosing source machine and all defaults. Destination product is VMware Workstation 7.x and target files are either local or to a USB drive (tried both). At the last step I get a yellow bar with the error "the specified parameter was not correct '' " but the following quotes are empty and presume suppose to say the parameter name. Only thing I see that is suspicious is that if I click Edit in the "Data to Copy" section, the list of volumes and empty and assume it should not be. The sample video for tips on using Converter on the VMware support sites show a volume listed here. I tried the same approach on a completely different system running Vista SP2 and still the no volumes appear so perhaps this normal?

Any idea what I am doing wrong? I did export the logs and look and it does appear no volume information was captured (lots of <unsets>) but again, just guessing. Any advice would be greadly appreciated.

Thanks,

Don

[Troy_Clavell]

thread moved to Converter Community

[peevs]

Hello Don,

Could you provide the converter logs, so we can try to investigate the problem. You can export them easily, by just click "Export diagnostics logs" link in the "Conversion" wizard page, where you saw the yellow banner. Please, attach the generated .zip file in this thread, and we will try to help you.

[peevs]

One more hint - remove the USB memory, before starting the conversion - this may cause the problem.

[dondraper]

The exported logs are attached to this reply. Interesting that this occuring on two of my systems:

• Dell Latitude D820 laptop Win7 Ultimate x64.

• Vista x64 SP2 on a i7 based desktop

The only software that is common to both is Acronis TI Home 2009/2011 backup software. The laptop is a development box with tons of tools and apps. The desktop is pretty much limited to multimedia production and a couple of games. A friend of mine who uses Converter all the time remoted in and walked the wizard himself as he wanted to see it for himself. He immediately upgraded to 4.3.0 and did NOT have the problem.

When you say remove the USB, do you mean the external USB drive I was backing up to? I did restart the system with nothing attached and pointed the destination to a local drive but still no source volumes found.

Would there be any merit in attempting to run Converter in safe mode? Regardless, I would love to resolve this so let me know what I can do to try. A tech is welcome to TeamViewer in an try it themselves if we can schedule it. Thanks for your assistance very much!

[peevs]

Hello Don,

Thank you for the answer.

I look through the logs your provided and i am a little confused, so i will need some more assistence from you. I little more complicated this time.

1. What was the type of the source machine you have used, when you see the error. (i.e. if it was "Power-on" source / "This local machine" or remote IP, or some kind of "Backup or 3rd party image"). Also, is it a default converter installation or client-server ones, where you connect to the converter server by IP.

2. Please, Increase the log level and provide the logs again.

a). In the folder: C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone> there is converter-worker.xml and converter-server.xml.

In the both XMLs locate the following element:

<log>

...

<level>info</level>

</log>

b). Replace "info" with "verbose", and save the files. After that restart the vmware-converter-server and vmware-converter-worker services (you'll find them in services.msc).

c). After that reproduce the error again and export logs, this time via "File -> Export logs..." (If you have any task in the list, verify no one is selected)

3. Just some reminder in case of remote source machine - verify that all firewalls between source, destination location, and converter installation are turned off, and also that credentials used for the source are with administrative priviledges.

[dondraper]

Thank you very much for your assistance. I will promptly provide all the information and follow your instructions to help you resolve the issue.

1. On both machines, the source machine was "Power-on" source / "This local machine".

2. The log level was increased to "verbose" and I recreated the logs using the menu option.

3. I am a software developer and installed the OS's myself and have full administrative rights.

I have included screen captures in a separate ZIP file of the wizard at each step to provide you a visual step-by-step look at the settings.

C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\convert-worker.xml file was locked and restarting the machine or even stopping the VMware Converter services did not release it. I was able to edit it by saving it under a different name, deleting the locked file (?) and then renaming back to the original name. Based on the size of the diagnostic logs, I am confident it produced them with a verbose setting.

If it would help, I can provide remote access to you using a free but excellent product called TeamViewer. Just let me know if would add any value.

Thanks again!

[peevs]

Thank you.

I found something in the Converter 4.3 release notes, which may be your case :

*Converter Standalone is unable to detect the system volume if it

resides on a SCSI disk and IDE disks are present in the source machine*

On source machines with SCSI and IDE disks, Converter is unable to

detect the system volume if the system volume resides on a SCSI disk.

Converter only checks the first IDE disk in such configurations.

Is it your windows istallation in C:\windows ?

Also, could you paste the content of your boot.ini file ?

[dondraper]

Sorry but I do not believe that is the case here. Both the laptop (Dell D820 Latitude/Windows 7 - single SATA drive) and the workstation (home built/Vista SP2 - boot drive is SATA and there are two more SATA drives in RAID1 that not bootable) are using standard IDE/SATA drives with no SCSC in the picture. The Vista workstation is set to dual boot XP and Vista so perhaps that could related to it's issue. But the latop is laptop which is my primary need is just a plain vanilla

install of Windows 7 in the standard location. No SCSI and not other

drives plus no changes to boot up.

Neither Windows 7 or Vista uess a boot.ini anymore. I listed the contents of the Windows 7 boot manager on the laptop and placed the output into a file named bootmgrcontents.txt attached to my reply. I did this by using...

bootmgr > c:\temp\bootmgrcontents.txt

I also used the System Information utility to list Drive, IDE and SCSI sections and placed that in the SystemInformation.txt file. The SCSI section was empty which would be expected.

I think the issue here is a new one. The drive on the laptop has been restored using a Acronis Home 2009. I use two different physical drives and backup about once per month and then restore to the other drive. That way I always have a fully operational spare drive ready to boot from should one die. However, for the Vista system, that drive has never been restored at all. (backed up but never restored). The only common thing I can think between the two systems is that both have Acronis backup installed.

Windows is installed at the standard place on both systems.

Thx

[majorpay]

I have an identical issue with Converter, but I'm using Windows Server 2003 (x86). I have 3 hard drives mapped: c, d, and f respectively.

After closer inspection, I noticed that one of my hard drives (d), although it shows up throughout the system and is functioning properly, is not listed in my computer management / Disk Management utility. I believe this particular hard drive to be using a pci controller apart from the motherboard.

All of the hard drives are IDE.

Is it possible that Converter does not support certain drive controllers? The system drive is actually on the motherboard controller itself, and not on the "d" drive.

[continuum]

try again with converter 3.0.3 - that usually has the best results for 2003




_________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[brandonesbach]

Having this exact issue. Situation is that we are rolling VMWare environment to our new site; licence keys are ordered through Dell but still not sent. We have one week to complete the migration, and so far I am not impressed at all with hot convertion. Cold clone on the old ESX servers in our EU site were rock solid - not a singe squeak of issues, even today on our 4 year old environment.

What happened to Cold Clone? I miss things "just working" on the platform!!

[epirsch · Accepted solution]

I had the same issue on a Win7 x64 machine... There was no disk listed to convert.

I managed to solve the issue by running Converter as an Administrator. Right-click on the Converter desktop icon and select Run as Administrator.

Now the disks appears, and you can select what can be converter.

[dondraper]

epirsch - You are scholar and a gentleman. Thanks for taking time to make that post. That appears to have resolved my issue as well.

While I have administrative rights on my machines (installed the OS myself and able to install software), I assumed (incorrectly) that any application requiring elevated privileges via UAC would prompt the user. So why does a sophisticated, cutting edge company like VMware and this application not do

this as well? Heck, I have $20 dollar shareware apps that prompt me when UAC kicks in and requires elevated permissions!

Regardless, I will contact VMware support and ask about this as I hope others who read this will too. Perhaps they will add a prompt when the UAC privilege is required so others don't waste valuable time.

What a shame that we have spent all this time, especially the folks on here working to resolve this issue on my behalf. Also embarrassed I did not think to try this. It is Windows after all.

Thanks again for everyone's help. Sorry I did not think to try this before.

[majorpay]

Converter 3.0.3 states that it is unable to identify the guest operating system. (Server 2003 Enterprise R2)

I have checked my boot.ini, I have disabled every USB host and device (I have no USB Storage devices anyhow), I have disabled all but my primary hard drive, my primary hard drive has only 1 partition, I have disabled the floppy driver (even though there is no floppy device on this machine), I tried disabling the secondary hard drive controller, I have tried using 3.0.3 from a remote computer to connect to the server, I have monkeyed a little with the registry settings (very temporarily) to modify version numbers.

If I go with 4.3, I get no source drives in the list, if I go with 3.0.3, I get no recognition of the O.S.

Have I missed something?

[continuum]

if 3.0.3 does not detect a 2003 R2 I guess your boot.ini has more then one entry - please post it




_________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[majorpay]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise" /noexecute=optout /fastdetect

[continuum]

hmmm - that boot.ini is fine




_________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[majorpay]

Exactly what I was thinking. 4.3.0 showed no drives in the source drives list, and 3 says it can't recognize the O.S. I seem to remember a few years back using the converter, and it was just point, click, and go... Perhaps the motherboard is not supported? It is a rather older PC (hence the need for virtualization).

[gmusumeci]

Right click on VMware Converter icon and run as administrator help me to P2V a Windows 2008 R2 server too.