Failed at 98% : Unable to find the system volume, reconfiguration is not possible - Windows Vista

[NewGuyInVMs]

Greetings!

Issue:

The conversion stops at 98% showing the message in the title. There is no boot.ini file on the boot drive and trying to reconfigure the VM didn't solve the problem as well.

I tried un-successfully to convert only the active partition (C:) to the VM but the same problem appears.

Extra information:

The computer is an old laptop which has an internal Seagate drive with 3 partitions as it appears in the image attached. C: has the windows installation, 😧 is a partition for data and the 3rd one I am not sure what it contains; I believe it has some kind of recovery software (?)

OS: Windows Vista 32bit

VMware vCenter Converter: 6.2.0 build-7348398

Task with ID 6 is the conversion with all 3 partitions of the drive (logs can be found at ConverterDiagnostics20171111220416.zip file) and task with ID 8 is the conversion with only one partition - the one that has windows installed (C:) - (logs can be found at ConverterDiagnostics20180113045616.zip file)

Laptop's history:

I'm trying to make a VM of the laptop because it started showing signs that it might die soon - several times of freezing, then not being able to boot. After opening the laptop's case and clearing it a bit, it seems to be working fine - but in any case I'd like to somehow preserve the OS and programs/software that nobody has the installation files for anymore.

Any help would be appreciated!

[admin]

Can you please post/attach the VM's vmx file.

Regards,

Randhir

[NewGuyInVMs]

This is the VM's vmx file.

Thanks for reminding me!

[admin]

Can you see below link about BSOD 7B....

P2v and 0x0000007B BSOD

While you are editing the vmx file, you may also want to replace

guestOS = "longhorn"

by

guestOS = "winvista"

or - even better - edit the guest OS in the VM's settings.

Regards,

Randhir

[NewGuyInVMs]

I did change the guestOS, but it made no difference.

BSOD appears again (this time appeared without a code, but with the same message). I did run a chkdsk on the VM, but nothing changed.

[admin · Accepted solution]

can you confirm if you change

change

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"

to

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"

It only applies if the virtual disk is configured like this

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"

On the target platform boot the newly created VM into the Windows Recovery CD.

After boot is finished click on the CMD-button and run regedit.

Select HKLM and then Menu > File > Load Hive.

Browse to the Windows-directory on the virtualdisk > system32\config and select the file SYSTEM.

When asked for a name enter ILIAS_NB_FIFTH.

Then find the key

HKLM\ILIAS_NB_FIFTH\ControlSet001\services\LSI_SAS

and set the start type to REG_DWORD 0

Then select HKLM\ILIAS_NB_FIFTH and click Menu > File > Unload Hive.

You can close regedit now and restart.

On next boot you can start into the Windows Vista system. It should find drivers and probably needs a reboot when done

Regards,

Randhir

[POCEH]

If VM booted this is step ahead

From the screenshots I've see that probably "ahci" controller is not present in Vista, so try to change it to "lsisas1068", "lsilogic" and "buslogic" (in this order) and boot VM. You can change the string in VMX file directly with text editor.

Please share the result.

[NewGuyInVMs]

I guess you are referring to the

sata0.virtualDev = "ahci"

line in the .vmx file. I tried to boot the VM after I changed it to both 3 values, but on every one of them similar message to the below appeared:

I tried also the suggestion of ranchuab to change

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"

to

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"

But that didn't make any difference as well.

I will try to do the rest he suggests once I get to open a CMD through the installation disc - I have to select the repair option and wait for it to complete the try before it shows up the options to open the cmd.

[NewGuyInVMs]

Oh, wow! That actually did make it work! VM booted with no problem and I logged into the admin account!

Thanks ranchuab and POCEH for all your help!

[admin]

you are welcome NewGuyInVMs

Regards,

Randhir

[NewGuyInVMs]

I've got only one last problem - not sure if I should make a new question on the Workstation forum about this so I'll ask here first.

I am trying to install VMware Tools on this VM, but it fails giving me the below error message:

I can successfully visit the webpage from the browser of the VM and also on the browser of the pc running the VM:

Any idea what to do in this case?

[POCEH]

First check if VM Player 12 is supported yet. If not should upgrade to latest one and then try to install tools.

Just wild guess. HTH

Also check if Vista is supported.