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gamania
Contributor
Contributor

VMware converter 5.0 will crash when using vCenter 5.1 as destination

converter 5.0 will crash when vcenter is upgraded to 5.1. Does anybody know any temp work around or fix? thanks

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mwdigital
Contributor
Contributor

Well this totally blows.  It would be nice to get an ETA to when a "working" converter will be released.  Rolled out a standalone server using 5.1 (I'll think twice about using the "latest" versions of ESXi in the future), sent it to a remote client 500 miles away in hopes of P2Ving their old physical server. 

Doh!

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ofirzvik
Contributor
Contributor

Yep, we got stuck as well.

I'm moving machines by connecting them to the ISCSI network and doing migrate to the vmdk

Afterwards migrating the host

But it requires me to have them on the same datacenter and to convert them from other VMware servers.

Any workaround for converting hyper-v VMs? Maybe a third-party tool?

Ofir Zvik CTO Evolution Online / xGlobe Online
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harley3k
Contributor
Contributor

Hey no worries everyone. Because of a project deadline I will be forced to rebuild ESX server as 5.0 on Monday, so that I can use the vmware converter tool.

The fix for this is sure to come out the minute after I am done.

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VCSLI
Contributor
Contributor

Nope. It'l take them 6 months. Don't worry about that.

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mwdigital
Contributor
Contributor

Good news!

Per some advice I read in another thread I was able to do a P2V conversion using version 4.1 of the standalone converter (didn't bother trying 4.3, but thinking that version may work too)!  It's currently running now, waiting for it to complete... if it fails I'll update this post.

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harley3k
Contributor
Contributor

Did it work?

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mwdigital
Contributor
Contributor

Like a charm.

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harley3k
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks!

Going to give this a try today myself.

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GentryChattanoo
Contributor
Contributor

Is there any progress on this?

Arch

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VCSLI
Contributor
Contributor

It hasnt been 6-8 months yet.

Plus the thread needs to be 100 pages or more for them to consider thinking about possibly taking action.

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mwdigital
Contributor
Contributor

You can use version 4, it works, tested.

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harley3k
Contributor
Contributor

Worked for me as well.

The VM Version shows up as 4, instead of 8.

Just need to upgrade that after.

Thanks for the tip.

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tman24
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Anyone confirm if Converter 4.3 works? Haven't had a chance to try this yet myself.

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harley3k
Contributor
Contributor

Yep - a couple of us tried it successfully.

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DanielOlofsson
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the tip. Saved me some work today.

I used Converter 4.3.0 to migrate a machine from vSphere 4 to vSphere 5.1.

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iPhrankie
Contributor
Contributor

A solution I'm going to approach is the following:

1. Prepare a system with the free vSphere Hypervisor 5.0

2. Proceed with the conversion of the server (Server 2003) with the target being vSphere Hypervisor 5.0

3. Once the conversion is done, immedietly move/copy the file to ESXi 5.1

Anyone see a problem with this approach?

Thanks.

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mwdigital
Contributor
Contributor

Or just use converter 4 to convert it to 5.1.  Either way works, this way is the quickest.

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GentryChattanoo
Contributor
Contributor

I was able to convert SBS2008 to esxi 5.1 using converter 4.3 but what I did to get it to work was weird. For those of y'all that know what you are doing, you may laugh at the steps I took (I'm not very knowledgeable of the product) but it worked for me. Here is what I did:

  1. I used 4.3 to convert SBS 2008. The only way it would work was to tell it that it is a version 4 virtual machine.
  2. Once almost finished, it got to very end and said something like "95% Complete. Error Reconfiguration  failed. With a status of: FAILED: Unable to find the system volume,  reconfiguration is not possible". The error log said this: "Unexpected Exception: converter.fault.ReconfigurationNoSystemVolumeFault".
  3. I went ahead and tried to boot the VM, it immediatly blue screened.
  4. I noticed it was set to a "BusLogic parallel" so I tried to change it to the other option LSI logic. That did not work either.
  5. I tried to upgrade to  version 9 virtual machine, still no go.
  6. I changed the VM to boot to the Win2008 repair disk and then had it go to the command prompt.
  7. Started regedit
  8. click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then File > Load Hive ( when it asked for a name, I just gave a placeholder called PV)
  9. Loaded hive from \MountedDrive\Windows\System32\Config\SYSTEM
  10. I went to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\service\LSI_SCSI and  changed the start value from "3" to "0".
  11. I then saved the hive
  12. I rebooted the VM and it fired right up!

Arch

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mwdigital
Contributor
Contributor

Funny I had the same 95% issue converting a 2003 SBS server.  My issue was that there was software RAID and the primary disk wasn't marked as active.  I attached the vmdk to another machine, marked it as active in disk manager and it booted up.

I believe you can upgrade the v4 VM to a v7 v8 VM by shutting it down, right clicking in vSphere, upgrade hardware.

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arnaudov
Community Manager
Community Manager

I would like to thank everyone for highlighting this issue and for sugegsting the various possible solutions.

While there are few possible workarounds (described in this KB article) we consider this issue with highest priority and we're actively working on resolving it as soon as possible.

If you subscribe for updates on this KB article you'll be notified when it is resolved.

-- Antoan Arnaudov

Product Manager @ VMware

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