use vcenter converter standalone to p2v failed

[wangxl7087]

Dear everyone

     my physical computer is install windows server 20003 sp2 standard edition,now i want to conver it to VM on vmware vsphere .when started conver ,it has a issue below

    

my vcenter converter standalone version is 6.1.1

physical computer's agent is manual installed (can not push install from vcenter converter standalone server)

i also restart the source computer after install agent

now i have no ideal for this issue

so can anyone help me to resolve this issue,?thanks a lot.

[gparker]

Hi Ulli, thanks for your prompt response 🙂 I installed VMware Converter on 12 servers a month ago and have been performing synchronizations on each of them at least once a week and they've been working fine up until last weekend when all of them failed with the "missing vstor2 driver or not started" message. So do you you think the security/anti-malware tool on all 12 machines decided to flag vstor2 as malware last weekend and not when I had initially installed Converter on all of them a month ago and been running successful syncs? My feeling at this stage is that the "Backup Manager" utility that was updated on all 12 machines the day before the "missing vstor2 driver or not started" message occurred is more likely to be the culprit, but not too sure.

The reason I'm using VMware Converter is because of its delta sync ability - I can run "catchup" syncs as often as I want up until we schedule the final sync/cutover. This is especially useful for large servers where it takes for example 4 days to complete the initial full sync and I can follow this up with regular shorter delta syncs. Does ddrescue have a similar ability or does it just do a one-time copy?

Regards, George.

[continuum]

In your case ddrescue would be no help - but you could look into rsync or robocopy

Ulli

[gparker]

Thanks Ulli. I've discovered that if I run the VMware Converter installer on one of the affected servers and I select the "Repair" option, it re-instates the vstor2 driver - I do an "sc query vstor2....." and it tells me it's running ok. I can then launch Converter and perform P2V's again! The only problem is that the repair option wipes out all job history, so I have to start the initial full sync from scratch.

Regards, George.

[continuum]

Why dont you extract a vstor2 driver from sources and inject it - apparently you dont mind if it is bad any way ?

Ulli

[gparker]

Hi Ulli,

I'm not sure what you mean by "extract a vstor2 driver from sources" ?

Regards, George.

[BigMike23]

Wouldn't this all be easier to do with Veeam or other backup software? It seems like your doing alot of manual work for something you can automate. I hope it is working for you going forward.

[gparker]

Hi BigMike,

The problem with Veeam or other backup software is their inabilities to perform delta syncs. VMware Converter performs an initial full sync of a VM, then I can schedule regular incremental/delta/catch-up syncs until I'm ready to cutover the VM.

I got the root cause of my issue...The customer installed a cloud-based backup agent onto the VMs and everytime the agent was patched, it killed the vstor driver that Converter needs. My only solution was to do a repair or re-install Converter.

Regards, George.

[BigMike23]

That is great that you were able to find the root cause. Also good to know that you can use convertor for that function

[jmontgomery2]

Have you looked at starwindconvertor?  We have used this recently as VMware did away with the Convertor Tool  and has yet to replace it.