Cold Conversion failed

[Mango96701]

One of our affiliate locations just attempted a BootCD conversion of our Windows 2003 Domain Controller to their ESXi 4 host and almost immediately the conversion failed. Looking at logs I found this:

2010-09-30 18:08:50.296 'VmdbSvc' 1740 error] Failed to accept: SSL Exception: error:00000000:lib(0):func(0):reason(0)

and also

Warning: no attached disks were detected.

#6] VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task: Image processing task has failed with MethodFault::Exception: sysimage.fault.UnableToDetermineGuestOs VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task: SetState to error

object explicitly disposed: VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task VmiQuerySourceInfoTask::task being destroyed

Stopped impersonating in session A0D5CE20-5BAE-406C-8DAE-5A9C34C439B4

CloseSession called for session id=A0D5CE20-5BAE-406C-8DAE-5A9C34C439B4

Removed vmdb connection /db/connection/#6/

Impersonating user SYSTEM in session 9BE41BFF-C7A9-48A5-879F-8E8F9BF48373

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It appears to me that (a) there was a network connection problem and (b) a conversion configuration issue. But, I wanted to get other advise on this as I've never had a failure when we perform a BootCD conversion of a physcial server.

[VTsukanov]

Warning: no attached disks were detected.

It looks like that your Converter Boot CD has not drivers for disk access

Take a look at Adding additional drivers to the VMware Converter Cold Clone ISO

[Mango96701]

Thank you.

One more question. I did some checking and it appears that the server our affiliate administrator is trying to convert is a box that he does not have access permissions to. Doesn't he have to login to the server to perform the conversion....or, is there no requirement to login to the source server when you do a BootCd conversion.

[VTsukanov]

Yes, if you use VMware Converter Cold Clone ISO, then you don't need login rights on the source physical server, you will need certain rights on your ESX server/VC server.

[Mango96701]

thanks very much

[golddiggie]

It's not recommended to P2V AD domain controllers... It's better to build a new AD DC as a VM, add it to the pool, then promote it to the parent/dominant/main/whatever-they-call-it-these-days, and demote the physical controller before taking it offline. Yes, it's more work this way, but from everyone I've spoken with about converting DC's to VM's, this has proven to be best practice.

VMware VCP4

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[Mango96701]

thanks. That is how we do it but didn't know that a Cold Conversion was not practical, as well. Thought it was just for Live conversions