p2v sbs2003 to ESX 4.1 vm freeze on network connections.

[djrc]

After a successful P2V from a SBS2003 SP2 box to ESX 4.1 using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone, the resulting VM starts but freeze on access of the Network Connections in Control Panel.

Device Manager show a standard Ethernet Controller but any operation to remove, detect hardware changes result in the OS hanging indefinetely or until task/process is ended/terminated.

Any advice welcome before I open a VMware incident.

[Troy_Clavell]

what I would do is, power off the guest, remove the NIC. Power on the guest. open a command prompt type

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

then

Start DEVMGMT.MSC

then when device manager opens, click on View--Show Hidden devices. Go through each item and uninstall the grayed out devices. Once complete shutdown, add in a new NIC, power the guest back on and see what happens.

Also, make sure you install the VMware Guest Tools.

[djrc]

Thanks I did that, or rather tried, shut down the VM, removed the NIC from the configuration, restarted the VM and accessed the Device Manager as indicated.

When deleting the greyed network card the Device Manager hangs each time, I had to end task it and or starting again the card had gone.

However I could not delete the following card : RAS Async Adapter

I got the following error message : failed to uninstall the device, the device may be required to boot up the computer

So I deleted all the greyed devices except the following in the Non- Plug and Play drivers : Fs_Rec, Symevent, RDPNP, NAVENG, NAVEX15, TrueCrypt, VGA, VMWarebootrunservice

Then complete shutdown again, added E1000 (left the default card) as NIC, powered back on the VM and ended up with an Ethernet Card with a yellow exclamation point.

I tried to update the drivers, Windows found something suitable : Intel Pro 1000MT Network Controller but it gets stuck installing the drivers (see screenshot), I left it 20 mins, the animation carries on but does not complete.

Any more idea ?

[Troy_Clavell]

However I could not delete the following card : RAS Async Adapter

This won't go away, so don't worry about that

Any more idea ?

From your screen shot, you do not have the VMware Tools installed. You need to install the guest tools. That should update the NIC driver.

[djrc]

It's because the installation of VMware Tools fails...

Error something like not possible to contact server.

Can't remember the exact error message now as not onsite, but will try again tomorrow.

[LucianoPatrão]

Hi

I have write an article about P2V. This is a process about P2V with the pre and post tasks.

Read this and try to follow all the taks. The artice is about a cold migration, but you can use the same tasks and scripts for a online migration.

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/VMWare/A_3639-VMware-vConverter-P2V-for-Windows-Servers.htm...

JailBreak

IT Network Manager

If helpful Please award points

Thank You

[djrc]

Please find attached a screenshot of the error message when installing VMware Tools.

[Troy_Clavell]

have you tried to just mount the tools install, and then copy the install files off the virtual cd to the guests desktop and then run the install?

[djrc]

how do you just mount the Tools CD ?

actually I think that's how I started the install, ran the setup.exe from D:\ (Tools) drive

[Troy_Clavell]

while you have the VM's console open, logged into the guest, click on VMGuestInsall/Upgrade Tools. When the autorun starts, just leave the popup open, then browse the CD, copy the contents to a folder on the desktop and run the install from the local machine.

[djrc]

Copying the Tools CD content to the local disk and installing fails too with the same error message.

[djrc]

Anymore ideas on this problematic p2v ?

Recap : Network connections cannot be accessed VM freezes

VMtools fail to install (see screenshot in previous post)

Tried to uninstall APC software, did not resolve the issues (http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-2092534.php)

[LucianoPatrão]

Hi

Have you seen my article? Did you try to P2V that physical server with the pre and post tasks in the article?

If not, please try. This will fix many issues that we may encounter in a P2V process.

JailBreak

IT Network Manager

If helpful Please award points

Thank You

[djrc]

Thanks for the help.

I'm going through the article right now. Will need to rerun the p2v process.

Where do I find the vCenter Converter Boot CD and how do I add the drivers for the RAID card to access the logical arrays ? (I've got a hardware RAID1)

I don't understand the following lines :

• Check if the server will use serial ports or USB, P2V will need
  to be restricted to an ESX host with physical serial device.

We're not using them for anything but both the source and target have serial and USB ports.

• Extract the P2V Scripts to the physical server “c:\P2V” (create the P2V directory if not exists).

Where do I find the P2V scripts ?

[LucianoPatrão]

Hi

First for to donwload the BootCD you need to have VMware Enterprise License. You can download from here.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1026714

Second, with the latest version i think you dont need to had drivers into the BootCD. But if you need, check this.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1012947

Regarding the USB and serial ports, if you are not using, there is no problem. After the migration, just remove from the VM(there is a task in the article for this)

If you go to end of the article, there is a link to download the scripts(you need register)

http://www.ee-stuff.com/Expert/Upload/getFile.php?fid=7978

But send me your email and I will send you the scripts by email

Hope this can help

JailBreak

IT Network Manager

If helpful Please award points

Thank You

[djrc]

As a professional partner we should be able to download the Boot CD, but the end user only has the vSphere Essentials.

Does it mean they are not allowed to make cold p2v ?

[LucianoPatrão · Accepted solution]

Hi

Honestly i never understand why this tool is not free.

I only have Essentials Plus license, so i do not know if the Essentials have the permission to donwload this tool.

But if you are a costumer, and have no access to this tool, send an email to support and ask for this.

JailBreak

IT Network Manager

If helpful Please award points

Thank You

[djrc]

After finding this article about APC management software (), I removed it from the source server.

I've redone a hot p2v with Converter Standalone, with the following options :

delete all restore points unchecked

do not synchronise changes after p2v

all services left running

After the new p2v I can access network connections, change IP, etc, even managed to install VMware Tools.

Thanks for the help