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vegemite
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P2V guest black screen

Hi,

I am trying to convert a physical XP SP3 machine to a virtual image on an ESXi 4.0 host using the VMware VCenter Converter.

When the virtual guest is started, the console just shows a black screen.

Can someone please help?

Thanks

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dmadden
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There's a couple of solutions here:

1) Reconfigure the virtual disk file to be a SCSI disk instead of IDE

- Remove the virtual disk from the virtual machine (right-click edit settings -> hard disk -> remove from virtual machine -> OK)

- Connect to service console (ESX) or unsupported mode (ESXi) and open the descriptor disk with a text editor such as vi (i.e. "vi /vmfs/volumes/storage/virtualmachinefolder/virtualdisk.vmdk"

- Change ide to "buslogic" or "lsilogic" and save the file

- Add the virtual disk back to the virtual machine (right-click edit settings -> add -> hard disk -> use existing disk -> browse to the disk etc)

- Verify that the scsi controller is set to buslogic or lsilogic (buslogic will probably have the most success)

- Power on the virtual machine

2) Use Converter to create the destination disk as SCSI instead of IDE

- Converter 4x has a new disk controller option that is defaulted to "preserve source"

- If the original disk is IDE, the virtual disk will be IDE as well

- Perform the conversion again and go through the Converter Wizard

- On the 2nd last screen with the various "Edit" options, there should be an Edit button for devices (without looking at the screen)

- Select the dropdown menu and choose buslogic/lsilogic instead of preserve source

- Convert the VM and it should boot

Rule of thumb is that if the virtual machine boots up and it immediately has a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left, then it's a hardware issue (controller most likely).

Hope this helps.

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lowburb
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It's most likely Microsofts piracy deterrent. I dont know the specific term it's called, but it's when XP senses too many hardware changes, it simply locks up. You need to do a fresh install on your VM. I am sure someone else can confirm my theory. It's pretty much the same thing as removing your HDD from a working XP box and putting it into a box with all different hardware. It just wont boot up.

However, I have managed to get around this security measure MS has put into place. (I dont know if this is legal or not, so attempt at your own risk). That is by removing all possible drivers in the decive manager within the physical machine. Remove every possible thing you can, then try the conversion again.

If that doesnt work, you can try this. It's a little more difficult, but should work, and that is doing a sysprep, shutting down the machine, use a network boot disk with combination of Norton Ghost and transfer the disk image from the physical machine to an FTP server. From there, you can boot your VM into the network boot disk and do the procedure backwards to pull the image down to the VM hard disk.

If someone else has a much easier way or better way of handling this, please please share. I'd love to know. And if my theory is NOT the reason XP doesnt boot up after a P2V conversion, I'd love to hear that, too.

Just a simple user trying to help and learn
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AndreTheGiant
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It could be a problem with the boot disk.

Try to change it to a IDE disk.

Or be sure that the conversion fix the virtual hardware and install also the VMware Tools.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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TomHowarth
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Read my blog post on the matter "Black Screen of Death"

It has nothing to do with "Priacy blocking" but more to do with corupted profiles, if it was a piracy block, it would be asking for authentication.

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author on "[VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment|http://www.amazon.co.uk/VMware-VSphere-Virtual-Infrastructure-Security/dp/0137158009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256146240&sr=1-1]”.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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lowburb
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Very interesting. I dont know if the original poster had the same

problem I did, but after multiple conversions, XP wouldnt boot, which

doesnt even give the option or imply it's a corrupt default profile.

When I did it, the VM Bios would POST, then a black screen with a

cursor in the top left corner. The XP loading logo never showed up.

Vegemite, are you experiencing the same thing I was or are you getting any indication it's booting? I dont think Windows Server OS's have the issue I'm talking about, I think just deaktop OS's

Just a simple user trying to help and learn
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TomHowarth
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What SCSI driver are you utilsing in your guest, I have seen the behaviour you are say with XPSP3 and the .41 LSI driver. try again with the BusLogic driver

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author on "[VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment|http://www.amazon.co.uk/VMware-VSphere-Virtual-Infrastructure-Security/dp/0137158009/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256146240&sr=1-1]”.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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lowburb
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I dont know the difference of the SCSI drivers, so I have always used the default. I'll definitley look into this. Thanks.

Is there any good "rule of thumbs" or any articles to help me understand all the options for the SCSI drivers? I know different OS's when selected, come up as different drivers by default.

EDIT* Defining the SCSI device during the conversion to a BusLogic worked. Thanks guys.

Just a simple user trying to help and learn
vegemite
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Well I've tried a few things but without any luck. Still get the black screen. I tried the following:

Re-installed the Vmware agent on the XP guest.

VM's hard disk can only be set to "IDE (0:0) hard disk 1"

Copied "sysprep" MS files to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\xp, on both the vCenter Server and the source physical XPmachine.

@ lowburb - yes I have the same problem - the XP logo doesn't show at all.

Attached are some screenshots...

Thanks all! Smiley Happy

Message was edited by: vegemite

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lowburb
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Vegemite

I did as described above, which was changing the destination disk controller to SCSI BusLogic Parallel when converting. I did it within the conversion process. The default is "preserve source" and I forced it to SCSI which makes it SCSI (0:0) Hard Disk 1.

Try going into your SCSI controller and changing it from what it is now (which is what?) to what I have set on mine, which is BusLogic Parallel and see if you have the SCSI options in your hard disk configuration.

If this doesnt work, I'd try the conversion one more time, but making sure to change the "preserve source" for the HDD or SCSI controller and set it accordingly. I had a few XP machines go wrong and they ended up like this and I never did resolve it. I did it today with this new "fix" and it worked when it previously did not.

Also, I was wrong with my first assumption of the piracy protection in Windows. It will just force you to re-activiate before you're allowed to sign in. This is also assuming you're not running a volume license version of XP.

Just a simple user trying to help and learn
dmadden
VMware Employee
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There's a couple of solutions here:

1) Reconfigure the virtual disk file to be a SCSI disk instead of IDE

- Remove the virtual disk from the virtual machine (right-click edit settings -> hard disk -> remove from virtual machine -> OK)

- Connect to service console (ESX) or unsupported mode (ESXi) and open the descriptor disk with a text editor such as vi (i.e. "vi /vmfs/volumes/storage/virtualmachinefolder/virtualdisk.vmdk"

- Change ide to "buslogic" or "lsilogic" and save the file

- Add the virtual disk back to the virtual machine (right-click edit settings -> add -> hard disk -> use existing disk -> browse to the disk etc)

- Verify that the scsi controller is set to buslogic or lsilogic (buslogic will probably have the most success)

- Power on the virtual machine

2) Use Converter to create the destination disk as SCSI instead of IDE

- Converter 4x has a new disk controller option that is defaulted to "preserve source"

- If the original disk is IDE, the virtual disk will be IDE as well

- Perform the conversion again and go through the Converter Wizard

- On the 2nd last screen with the various "Edit" options, there should be an Edit button for devices (without looking at the screen)

- Select the dropdown menu and choose buslogic/lsilogic instead of preserve source

- Convert the VM and it should boot

Rule of thumb is that if the virtual machine boots up and it immediately has a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left, then it's a hardware issue (controller most likely).

Hope this helps.

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