Converter and Dynamic Disks

[jpoling]

I've seen several posts on this, so basically I am looking for a summary:

If a physical machine has dynamic disks, can converter be used to migrate it to a VM?

If the answer above is No, how have others accomplished a P2V with a WIndows 2003 server using dynamic disks?

(I attempted a conversion and the VM failed to boot. . .then I found out the system is using dynamic disks)

Thanks for any insight

Jeff

[theanykey]

I wanted to see the results of converting a windows 2003 with the OS built on top of 2 physical disks presented as 1 disk via a software mirror.

Below are the results:

Chose to maintain size and automatically install vmware tools.

The conversion went without error @ 100%

The resulting VM booted up without error. I did note however that the boot.ini was unaltered and thus it requested me to choose the OS I wanted to boot from (C:\ or the software mirror). I chose to boot properly from the OS option. In the end, converter takes this dynamic mirror and converts it to a single basic disk.

Attached files:

1.jpg = diskmanagement before converter (dynamic/mirror)

2.jpg = diskmanagement after converter (basic 1 disk)

VMwareConverterLogs.zip = successful conversion

[theanykey]

adding more ...

Boot.ini.before.txt = self explanatory

Boot.ini.after.txt = self explanatory

[jpoling]

Thanks for your research on this. . .there is one difference between what you tested and what I am trying to convert. There are two physical disks in mine, software mirroring, but there are two mirrored volumes (C: and D:). My boot.ini looked pretty similar to yours. . .What impact does the two volumes have on this?

Thanks!

Jeff

[theanykey]

After converter ran, the VM came up fine. However, from my understanding (I could be wrong on this) QA has not 100% tested dynamic disks yet so it should be considered expiremental.

The thing to point out here is older version of converter would automatically suggest the error "unable to determine guest os" so upgrading to 3.0.2u1 is essential.

The boot.ini file did not change and I was presented with boot options in the resulting VM. Something you should note - change your VM's boot.ini

This test was accomplished using a VM (treated as a physical machine).

This was done via a hot clone. I have not had a chance to test cold clone.

[jpoling]

I thought I was using the latest version of converter, but in fact was not. I got the 3.0.2u1 version and installed it. . .I will attempt the conversion again once I get approval from the department.

Jeff