Upgrading virtual hardware on 2008R2 causing NIC to not load

[wkwicker]

Hello,

I have upgraded several hosts from 3.5 to 4.1 and am having issues upgrading the virtual hardware on several 2008R2 hosts.

My steps:

Upgrade vmtools, this completes successfully. Server reboots and tools are installed and working fine.

Shutdown, upgrade virtual hardware. This completes, server reboots, but the Intel PRO/100MT NIC Is not loaded. It has a warning icon in device manager and states it is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required. Code 31.

If I uninstall vmtools, reboot, restart again (Windows asked to), reinstall tools, reboot the server, uninstall NIC from device manager, scan for changes, the NIC finally loads fine.

Uninstalling the NIC from device manager and scanning for changes causes it to load with an error again.

Any idea on how to get it to work correctly after the virtual hardware upgrade? All the reboots make this a real pain.

[Troy_Clavell]

I would ensure you remove the "ghosted NIC" as well. Also, I assume you are using a VMXNET3 adapter?

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=269155

[wkwicker]

Thank you for the fast response but perhaps you responded to the wrong thread because this doesn't apply to my problem.

I am using the E1000 adapter. The VMXNET3 adapter is only supported on version 7 virtual hardware. The E1000 fails to load after upgrading from version 4 to version 7 virtual hardware. There is no ghosted adapter.

The Microsoft article is about IP configuration errors which I don't have.

[Troy_Clavell]

no, i did not respond to the wrong thread. You said you upgraded to v7 hardware. If that is the case, I would suggest using the VMXNET3 adapter, removing the E1000 adapter. After you remove the E1000 adapter, follow the M$ KB i posted to remove the hidden devices. If you upgraded the hardware there will be a lot of greyed out devices, you should uninstall them all. Once all the greyed out devices have been removed, reboot. You guest will not have a NIC, but once it comes back on-line, hot add in a new network adapter (VMXNET3)

[ucusan]

Hi Troy,

Did you manage to fix this issue? I have the same situation with a prod VM and no remediation action worked so far.