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tsangkc99
Contributor
Contributor

Local cloning for Small Business Server 4.5 - Unknown guest OS error

I've tried before to clone a SBS 4.5 by the VM Converter successfully. But now I want to clone another SBS 4.5. I get "Unknown Guest OS" message from the Converter and cannot go further!

Anyone knows how to find out what is the problem?

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

Converter does not support SBS. You can try another method like Ultimate-P2V instead.

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=174

What platforms can Converter be installed on?

VMware Converter 3 can be installed on the following platforms: Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server and Windows NT SP6+ (IE5 or higher required)

What import formats does Converter support?

Source formats supported include: Physical Machines running supported OS, Microsoft Virtual PC (version 7 and higher), Microsoft Virtual Server (any version), Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery images (also Ghost 9 or higher), VMware Workstation 4.x virtual machine (compatible with VMware GSX Server 3.x), VMware Workstation 5.x virtual machine (compatible with VMware Player and VMware Server 1.x), VMware ESX Server 3.x, VMware ESX Server 3.x (when managed by VirtualCenter 2.x), VMware ESX Server 2.5.x (when managed by VirtualCenter 2.x)

What export formats does Converter support?

Destination formats supported include: VMware Workstation 4.x virtual machine (compatible with VMware GSX Server 3.x, ESX Server 2.5.x), VMware Workstation 5.x virtual machine (compatible with VMware Player and VMware Server 1.x), VMware ESX Server 2.5.x (when managed by VirtualCenter 2.x), VMware ESX Server 3.x (when managed by VirtualCenter 2.x), VMware ESX Server 3.x Note: VMware ESX Server 2.5.x when managed by VirtualCenter 1.x and VMware ESX Server 2.5.x unmanaged are not supported

What are the supported guest operating systems?

The following 32-bit guest operating systems are fully supported by VMware Converter 3: Windows NT, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server.

The following 64-bit guest operating systems are fully supported by VMware Converter 3: Windows XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server

Support for the following guest operating systems is Experimental. VMware Converter 3 can clone source images containing these operating systems, but the destination virtual machine may or may not work without additional configuration after import. In particular, if the source image contains unsupported hardware, you may need to modify the configuration of the destination virtual machine before using it: Linux, Windows NT 3.x, Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, MS-DOS

tsangkc99
Contributor
Contributor

But I've tried to clone a SBS 2003 and another SBS 4.5 before. This time, it came with "Unknown guest OS error"! Is there any way I can force the Converter to clone it as an Windows NT Server?

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esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

Converter reads the boot.ini and some registry parameters to determine the guest OS. I've used some file and registry monitoring utilities to see what Converter is doing when it tries and determines the Source OS. What I see is that it looks at the boot.ini. So make sure your boot.ini is in the root of C:\ and the user you are using to login to that server has access to it. It also makes registry calls to determine the OS. It reads the below values from the registry, check to see if you have all these and they are set correctly.

HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\ProductOptions\ProductType "WinNT'

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CSDVersion "Service Pack 2"

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CurrentType "Uniprocessor Free"

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\CurrentVersion "5.1"

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProductName "Microsoft Windows XP"

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRoot "C:\Windows"

It is possible you might be able to fool Converter by changing some of these parameters. Just be warned that modifying the boot.ini and registry can possibly cause problems if not done correctly.