Fail to create windows machine from vmdk file.

[zohar811]

Hi, 

I'm trying to create a VM using a built-in machine I've downloaded from Microsoft official page

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines/

During the creation process, I've asked to provide some info about the VM which can be extracted automatically from the vmdk file : 

1. operating system 

2. specify the boot firmware

Unfortunately, I've tried several combinations but couldn't boot the from the virtual disk. 

1. when choosing UEFI, I get the following logs on boot, and get stuck (for logs see attached image) 

2. when choosing the legacy bios, I get blue screen with message that the volume is unmountable. 

This is the name of the vmdk file WinDev2106Eval-disk1.vmdk

Please advise how to resolve it. Thanks !

[bluefirestorm]

Have you tried importing the OVF instead?

Go to VMware Fusion File menu -> Import ... and import the WinDev2016Eval.ovf file

You can customise the VM settings after the VM is complete.

[zohar811]

Yes, It actually works.

For the general knowledge, how come the vmdk didn't work directly. I understand there's some meta data in the OVF file and that's it's pointing on the vmdk file, but what data does this OVF file have that make it vial to the VM creation ? 

Does it have answers to the questions appears during the custom vm creation like which firmware boot is used ? which OS ? 

Thanks !

[bluefirestorm]

It is best to use the OVF import as it would contain a lot of settings that the distributor of the VM appliance (in this case Microsoft) that they see it as minimum requirements. The vmdk also grown in size from 21.9GB to over 40GB so it looks like the vmdk was also compressed and the import via OVF also decompressed it.

For UEFI vs BIOS, you can see that the virtual disk has MBR (from diskmgmt.msc inside the Windows 10 VM). So that means it would work with BIOS and not with UEFI as UEFI would require a GPT. As you can see changing the Firmware type shows a warning that it can make the VM unbootable.

If you would like to use UEFI (for whatever reason) you can use the MBR2GPT tool to convert. But given that the VM expires every 30 days, you would have to be doing this for every import of this Microsoft developer VM unless in the future Microsoft distributes the VM pre-configured with UEFI instead of BIOS for firmware type.