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NeonSurge
Contributor
Contributor

No keyboard in converted VM

I just P2V'd an old Windows 2000 server using Vizioncore's Converter tool (latest version) to an ESX4.1 server. The conversion completed successfully with no warnings or errors and the VM boots fine although I have no keyboard input at the VM console so I can't log in. The mouse works fine. Both the physcial keyboard and mouse are wired USB (I've had problems with wireless keyboards in the past). I can't RDP because it currently has no network configuration so I can't install VMWare Tools. I've tried:

1. Removing and reinstalling the USB virtual device and rebooting the server.

2. Checking ownership and permissions on the .vmx file.

If I select "send Strl-Alt-Delete" from the VM console menu, nothing happens.

All of the relevant knowledge base and external articles I've found seem to relate to keyboard problems in Linux VMs and don't offer any insights into what might be happening with my Win2K VM.

Is there anything else I can check/try to get this VM to accept keybaord input?

Many thanks for any/all suggestions!

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NeonSurge
Contributor
Contributor

Update: The keyboard works fine in the BIOS screen and during the boot process so it's obviously something to do with the OS(?)

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

In safe mode it works?

If yes you can try to reinstall the drivers, and (if the keyboard was on USB) remove the old drivers.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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NeonSurge
Contributor
Contributor

Argh, can't believe I didn't think of that but unfortunately no, the keyboard doesn't work in safe mode either Smiley Sad

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

This is really strange.

Have you tried to convert the system with another tool, like VMware Standalone Converter (use the 3.0.3 version).

Last service pack is intalled?

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

If I select "send Strl-Alt-Delete" from the VM console menu, nothing happens.

Just to confirm. You can use the mouse and e.g. move the logon screen!? To make sure the system is responsive.

If nothing else helps, enable automatic logon on the source system and convert the system again. This way you should at least be able to use the mouse to open the Windows Event logs. see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310584/en-us

André

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

Create a BartPE disk http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ with the registry editor plugin http://regeditpe.sourceforge.net/ or a Microsoft ERD commander disk. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/mdop/default.aspx or the offline password editor disk http://www.pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ It should allow you to boot and fix the registry. Search the Microsoft website for registry examples of working keyboard registry entries or export the registry key from another system and import into the broken system. All of these disks are extremely useful for helping solve unusual problems.

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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Inks
Contributor
Contributor

I've experienced this same problem, never really found a solution, but the way around it was to allow RDP before conversion , and after the conversion use rdp to connect the machine. Not the best but a valid work around. We did work out that the original converted machine had a keyboard mouse hardware issue.

Cheers,

Steve

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tigerdeccan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

try uninstalling vmware tools and reinstall. that should sort it out  .

Different versions of Vspheres on source & destination causes this issue .

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