Error loading operating system

[msf004]

I have been tasked with converting an old physical server (RHEL3 ES release 3 Taroon Update 9) to a VM.  I used vcenter standalone converter (6.1.1 build-3533064) to perform a conversion.  Everything completed without errors; however, whenever I attempt to start the VM (using vSphere 5.5) the screen simply shows:

"Error loading operating system".

I have been searching for solutions but no luck so far. 

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?  I am happy to perform a conversion using a different method if vCenter Standalone Converter is not the best solution.

Thank you for any suggestions.

[TheBobkin]

Hello msf004​.

Welcome to Communities! Some useful info on participating here:

https://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-12286

Have you tried loading into the BIOS of the VM to check the boot-order?

Are you aware of which vmdk disk is supposed to be the boot drive and has this been added to the VM in SCSI 0:0? (Right-click VM > Edit Settings > Hard-disk drop-down info)

Bob

[msf004]

First, thank you for the response!

In BIOS I do have the HDD as the first boot option, and (I assume) BIOS believes it to be a SCSI HDD because the HDD does not show up in the Primary Master/Slave IDE settings.  I attached an image of the BIOS screen.

Within the VM Settings the VM only has one HDD.  I have attached a screenshot of the VM Settings too.

As previously mentioned, the source physical machine is old (RHEL3); however, I checked and the HDD does appear to be SCSI and not IDE, at least when I look at dmesg, I find this:

SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00

  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 00

SCSI device sda: 156299440 512-byte hdwr sectors (80025 MB)

...and it is a ~80 GB HDD.

Thanks.

[pwilk]

I would try to convert the physical machine to a VM again. What settings have you set when starting the conversion for the first time?

As a side note, don't worry about the conversion from IDE to SCSI - it shouldn't affect the VM's operating system in any way.

[msripada]

converter 6.x does not support RHEL 3

If the conversion is completed, then I would suggest you to try creating a new vmx, check the BIOS type -> is it set to EFI or you can flip to the other to test later?

Attach the existing converted vhdd and see if it loads up.

If not try converting using converter 5.x

Thanks,

MS

[msf004]

Thanks for the reply, but I am not clear on your instructions.

So, once the conversion successfully completes, then create a new Virtual Machine and attempt to attach the vmdk file of the converted machine to the new Virtual Machine?

[pwilk]

Yes, please try that and let us know if this resolved your issue.

[TheBobkin]

Hello msf004​,

Can you do a quick test of switching out the default controller type for attaching the vmdk to the VM?

I recall from back in my Infra days that some OSes could only access disks properly with certain controller types e.g. BusLogic LSI Parallel as opposed to the default LSI SAS type.

VMware vSphere 5.1

Which vSCSI controller should I choose for performance? - VMware vSphere Blog

It can depend on the driver on the OS compatibility too IIRC.

Bob