Split drives into different vmdk files

[pmorrison]

Is there a way in Converter to have a system drive be one vmdk file and additional partitions on that server be additional vmdk files?

I just did my first conversion and noticed that since our physical box had 1 physical drive with 2 partions (C: and D:), we ended up with one vmdk file with two partions. I can understand the logic in that but we have been splitting that up into 2 different vmdk files when we used P2V 2x in the past.....

[admin]

Not at this time.

If you have 2 volumes on the same disk on your physical machine, Converter will create the 2 volumes on a single virtual disk on the new VM by default. There is no way to separate the 2 volumes into 2 virtual disks.

Currently, you can employ a workaround by individually selecting only the desired volume and going through the process multiple times to create multiple VMs with multiple vmdks. Then you would have to manually merge the vmdks back into a single VM.

[pmorrison]

Where is the proper place to suggest this as a feature request?

[admin]

Feature requests can be posted in the Feature Requests forum.

http://www.vmware.com/community/forum.jspa?forumID=26

[gucci]

I believe you could use Gparted (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/) to do this!

1) Go trough the P2V process with Converter.

2) Add a second disk to the new VM

3) Boot the VM from the gparted live-cd

4) Move the second partition from disk1 to disk2.

5) Voila!

[pmorrison]

Yes, I have been doing two conversions. Each conversion only grabs one partition. I then go to the service console and put the vmdk files for D drive in with the OS vmdk files. vmkfstools -E to make the file name fit our standard then add the vmdk to the VM.

Then you delete from disk the second VM that was added into inventory.

But, this would all be much better if there was an option within converter to make this happen....

Oh, and I did put in a feature request so we shall see.

[VMwareman85]

So I followed this process (2) - migration, then I moved over the VMDk files using vmkfstools -E , I see the drive the second drive the first up, then I reboot the server and I can't login.

I login and it goes right back to the login screen, repeat process.

[yike]

Yes, I have been doing two conversions. Each

conversion only grabs one partition. I then go to

the service console and put the vmdk files for D

drive in with the OS vmdk files. vmkfstools -E to

make the file name fit our standard then add the vmdk

to the VM.

pmorrison, can you give me an example of the vmkfstools -E command you are using? I was thinking I could just move and rename the disks ... is there a reason to use vmkfstools to do it?

[jprevett]

using vmkfstools -E on the .vmdk file will also change the pointers and rename the flat file too since that is where the data is...

I suppose you could manually edit the file and change all the pointers but why go through the hasle when that is what the -E is used for...

[continuum]

I login and it goes right back to the login screen, repeat process.

sounds like a missing pagefile.sys on a 2k-guest ?