Okay, so here is my overly complicated scenario, and BTW, I am a VMWare n00b, so bare with me:
Right now I have an 8-way Opteron server with 8x Opteron 850 (2.4GHz single core) CPUs and 32GB of memory running Windows Server 2008 x64 and our Exchange 2007 server. The server is an I-WILL H8501 for those interested () that I got over a year ago at an auction (it was a lot auction and I had no clue what I had gotten until we got it all back to the shop). What I want to do is convert the current server install to a VM and install ESX or ESXi 4.0 onto the box and virtualize all of our other various servers as well since as you can tell, this box is WAY overkill for what it is currently doing. To be honest, originally I was going to go Hyper-V, however since this is an older server and Hyper-V in all its glory only works with the newest latest and greatest hardware, it was a no-go. So I turned to VMWare which I have actually found I like better anyways since the hypervisor is so much lighter then Hyper-V anyways and the client is awesome.
So I had the great idea of pulling our dual processor Xeon workstation from the lab, and installed ESX 3.5 on there in eval (since 4.0 was giving me the CPUID error). The next step was to convert the physical server I want ESX on finally to a VM on the temp host server, then load ESX onto the final server and move the VM over to the new host server as a guest. Sounded awesome in theory.
The problem I am having is when I try and run the converter it tells me the temporary host does not support 64-bit guests and will not let me convert it. I tried a 32-bit server for fun and that worked perfectly. So I know the temp host is x64 compatible as we have had various x64 OS's on there when running different lab scenarios previously, and if I setup a new VM on there, it lets me install Server 2008 x64 no problem at all.
So then I converted another server over to the temp host, and tried the same thing on that server, which again I know is a fully x64 compatible server, even though it isn't Intel VT. Same problem.
I am totally stumped and could really use some guidance here as to what to do. We don't have the budget for any new servers right now, so I have to make due with that I have. I know I can setup a new Server 2008 x64 VM on the temp host, load Exchange 2007 and move the mailboxes over, and then uninstall it from the 8-way server and demote it out, but that is a ton of work that i would rather avoid if possible. And then I still don't know if after all that I will be able to move the guest over to the final server or if I will get stuck with the same error.
PLEASE HELP!
-Brian
