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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

Getting ""Unable to determine guest operating system" when trying cold cloning ..

Hi all ... Well I have a Windows 7 system which I'm trying to cold clone using the VMware vSphere Converter Bootable CD ... When I boot the source system with this CD, and start the 'Import Machine' wizard, I get a "Unable to determine guest operating system" error when going through step 1 ... How do I solve this ?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

I think the reason for this is that support for Windows 7 was added with Converter 4.3 and the latest version of the Coldclone CD is 4.1.1.

If you need to coldclon the OS you may want to take a look at http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

André

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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

Yeah I really would need to cold clone that Windows 7 system using VMware Converter ...

So how exactly would I use MOA ? The site says its a plugin for Bart PE, So I guess it boots with it ... so then would do I do after that ? I install Converter and then run it from there ? ..

Any guides would be really helpful ...

Thanks for your help ! Smiley Happy

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orthohin
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Before doing cold cloning you have to make sure several things like...

1. Make sure you are running the latest version of VMware Converter. Updates seem to come

    pretty often for this tool.

2. Check the VMware Converter log file. More often than not you will find the source of your

    problem here

3. Make sure  that the VMware is not currently running in VMware Server.

4. Make sure that VMware Server does not have a lock on the VM’s files. You have have to stop

    all VMware Server Services and/or reboot the (VMWare) server.

5. Make sure you have appropriate permissions to the VM’s files.

Regards,
Milton

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window
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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

Sure thats all fine, but you didn't say if I will be installing Converter within Bart PE, or not ... Like how do I run Converter via MOA ?

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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

Need some help people ... Smiley Happy

Also, I have tried MOA out a little .. seems the tool isn't working for me for several reasons ... The ISO file it generates is 34 kb only in size, depsite me following all steps as shown in their tutorial video ..

So any other solutions ? There has got to be an easy way to clone a Windows 7 installation .. :smileyconfused:

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

34kb iso means that the download of pebuilder3110a.zip failed - download it manually and put it into the building directory

this will not help you - are you the guy with win7 on a usb-disk ?


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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orthohin
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

34 kb ISO? Sorry may be I am not getting you. I think yoy have to select right ISO file.

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window
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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

that is known problem when creating a MOA CD - due to a dead download link it creates a 34 kb iso-file


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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orthohin
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I think so.

---

Orthohin

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window
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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

Once again sir, you were spot on !

I manually downloaded the pebuilder zip file and placed it with moa setup .. did the whole rounds again and I got a proper ISO now .. Smiley Happy

I then burnt it and tried booting from it on a system which had Windows 7 installleed .. The disc boots, but sooner after I see the mouse pointer (with nothing else visible on the screen except blackness), I get an error mesaage:

"lsass.exe - System error:

"A system shutdown is in progress"

"OK"

And a few seconds later, the system restarts ..

I also tried booting from the generated ISO on a vmware virtual machine which had no OS installed .. Got a different error this time soon after I saw the mouse pointer:

"The requested operation was unsuccessful."

Any ideas what might be causing this ? ... And for it matters, I did chose to include VMware Converter 3.0.3 into the ISO, and had provided MOA with its setup file ..

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

> Once again sir, you were spot on !

sure - I am the author of that LiveCD Smiley Wink

if you need help with creating the iso we can arrange a teamviewer session - maybe on sunday ?


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

No, I have managed to generate the ISO now, after putting PE builder in the right place ..

I have burnt the ISO as well, and I can boot my computer from it ...

Only problem is that when it boots, I see one of the following two errors, after which the system restarts:

"A system shutdown is in progress"

"The requested operation was unsuccessful."

So how can I avoid these errors ? I would like to use this CD to make a coldclone of my Windows 7 based netbook ..

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

this are not normal errors - I doubt that build is successful.
please start from scratch and only put the moa-setup.exe and pebuilder3110a.zip into a blank directory


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

This picture shows the exact files I had in the folder when I started the process:

http://i.imgur.com/UKYng.png

All those zip files, except PE Builder ZIP file were downloaded using MOA itself ..

Could you maybe post the MD5 hashes of these files so that I can pinpoint which file needs to be redownloaded ? .. Because my internet speed is a little slow these days and redownloading all of them again can take a few hours maybe, and I can't wait that long :smileysilly:

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

the files look good - start in that directory as it is


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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ahmadka
Contributor
Contributor

Okay, I did the whole process again, but still the same errors when booting from the CD ...

I did note that during pebuilder's process, there were 124 errors ...

I have saved logs from both MOA and PEBuilder and have uploaded them here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ibdl72g8tbnawbt

Kindly have a look at the logs and see if you can spot why I might be getting those errors when running from the generated MOA CD ... The errors I'm referring to are mentioned on the previous page ..

And by the way, I ran the MOA setup on a Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 system, and had tried booting the CD on a Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 32 bit system ...

Also, I had use C:\moa as the folder where I stored all the moa related files ..

Thanks for your help Smiley Happy ...

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Hi
the mistakes you get are due to a corrupt moa241-corefiles.zip

please delete that archive and start over


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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