ESX3.5, Windows 2008 x64 Guest, Ghost 2003, Clone Disk and Resize Issue

[Ray_T]

I have created a vm with windows 2008 x64 with only a 40 GB Disk, due to the amount of software i had to install i now need to have a 50GB Disk. So i used Ghost 2003 and imaged out the Guest without issue. I then created a new guest VM windows 2008 x64 with a 50GB Disk and then ghosted in that Image in. When I boot up the image i get the Bios Screen and then a black screen with a blinking cursor bouncing all over the screen, i never see the windows splash screen at all. After that didn't work i attemped to use another utility called PING however the result was exactly the same. I then ran ghost again on my original 40GB VM and used the ghost -fdsp switch to see if that would help, i'm waiting for the results shortly. I have done this a million times without issue with windows 2003 however realizing that windows 2008 has a new boot sequence i'm guess the problem lies somewhere there. I had previously imaged out a windows 2008 x32 server and imaged it back to another VM without resizing the disks however even though it didn't work from the start i at least got an error message, for that error i used repair, command prompt, and bcdedit to add back in some lines relating to the partiion being on C:\. I also tried to do an export through Virtual Center however it doesn't recognize windows 2008. I can boot up with the windows 2008 disk and click on repair and open up a command prompt and see the c: drive fine, the issue is somewhere in the 1st part of the boot sequence. Hopefully someone has the fix for this issue. I know i could just rebuild the VM however where is the fun in that.... Any help would be appreciated...

[Ray_T]

As per my test when i ran Ghost with the -fdsp switches but the image never completed when i tried to ghost it into my 50GB VM, 'ghost has detected corruption in the image file. please perform an integrity check on the image...

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

Are you sure that Ghost correctly imaged the 40GB Virtual Disk. Did you save it so you can try again?

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, Virtualization Practice Analyst[/url]
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[cwenzel]

Ray,

I don't have a fix for your issue, but I do have some information about resizing volumes with Windows 2008...

I ran into the same issue a few months back, and I performed the following steps:

1) Shut down the VM and expand the size of the VDMK.

2) Power the VM back on and open Disk Management.

3) Right Click on the volume and choose to expand the volume.

Once that's finished you will have a larger volume. And yes, this was the boot volume.

I know this doesn't help now, but hopefully it will be of assistance in the future.

[Ray_T]

Ghost 2003 doesn't work with 2008x64 so i used ghost11.5 and it worked like a charm. Thanks for all who tried to help...