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NoahHuotari
Contributor
Contributor

VMs won't boot after Hyper-V to VMWare conversion

We are working on converting VMs from Hyper-V to VMWare. For a good handful of the VMs that we convert, after the process using the vCenter converter, they are unable to boot and it starts automatic repair and ends up at the screen to select shutdown, recover, advance troubleshooting, etc.

The only way we can get these VMs to boot is if we change the hard disk from SCSI to IDE.. But we do not want to use IDE.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

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pwilk
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

You need to convert the disks from IDE to SCSI. You can either do that on Hyper-V level and then convert them to VMware or on VMware level.

Here's a guide on how to convert an IDE disk to SCSI in VMware: VMware Knowledge Base

And here's a guide on how to do same in Hyper-V: https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/29002268/convert-Hyper-v-vhd-disk-form-IDE-to-SCSI.html

Please let me know if you'd need any further explanation or help with your problem.

Cheers, Paul Wilk
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NoahHuotari
Contributor
Contributor

From what I can tell, the disks are not IDE in Hyper-V as they're connected to a SCSI adapter. We've actually had a few VMs work fine on SCSI but then after a reboot, they can no longer boot unless they're set as IDE. That is the part that is really confusing us.

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IT_pilot
Expert
Expert

I use Paragon Hard Disk Manager (P2V Adjust OS).

The program simply takes the disk and creates a VM for vmware.

http://it-pilot.ru
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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

Alternatively, if they boot using an IDE adapter type, use that adapter initially. Once the VM is booted, shut it down and add a SCSI adapter of your type but ​do not change the disk to use that adapter​. Boot the VM and it will install and register that controller. Now you should be able to shut it down and change the disk(s) to use that SCSI adapter. If you boot at this point, it should come up fine and so you can remove the IDE storage adapter.

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NoahHuotari
Contributor
Contributor

When I remove the disk and re-add it, it shows up as the correct size so then I apply the changes and I try to boot it and I get an error saying "The file specified is not a virtual disk"

Then I go back to edit settings and the disk shows up with no size.

I already tried to recreate the disk descriptor file in this VMware Knowledge Base

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Steve451
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Noah. Were you able to get around this issue. After a Hyper-V to VMWare conversion I am having a similar issue where I need to change the SCSI disk to IDE for Windows to be able to write to the volume.

Thanks
Steve  

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bluefirestorm
Champion
Champion


After a Hyper-V to VMWare conversion I am having a similar issue where I need to change the SCSI disk to IDE for Windows to be able to write to the volume.

 


If the VM virtual disk is not writeable as a SCSI device, chances are there is GPO that prevents writing to ejectable/removable storage. With VMware ESXi, a lot of devices are ejectable/removable (including the SCSI virtual drive).

Adding the following to the vmx configuration file (power off before editing it).

devices.hotplug = "FALSE"
ahci.port.hotplug.enabled = "FALSE"

On a side note, it is better to write your own post than necroposting a 4 year old thread.