Dude, Where's my second volume?

[SporkMan]

Good Morning all,

I have an annoying problem and I'm not sure where to start the troubleshoot. I am using the latest version of VMWare VCenter converter standalone (4.3.0 Build 292238) I had also tried the previous version dated 2009.

I have an 8 year old DELL 6600 running Windows 2003 (pre-R2) as a file server (32 Bit, 4G ram) I'm looking to virtualize live (It's strictly a file & print server, no SQL or AD, Member server in a 2003 domain) Due to it's frequent access, a cold-clone is not feasable.

The server has a 17 GB boot mirror and a 980GB or so (just shy of a terabyte) data Raid 5 array. My target ESXi 4.1 box is formatted 4M block. and has a few TB available, but that doesn't matter because the problem appears before selecting the target server.

So I run the Converter, Pick Powered-on machine, use either servername or IP, I've tried a domain admin account and a local admin account/password, click on "View source details" and it only sees the Boot volume (17Gig) and ignores "D" completely? (screenshot attached)

I have tried this from the local server, a win7 workstation, and another 2008R2 server, always the same result, No D volume.

What am I doing wrong? Can you not use VMWare converter to clone an array of 980GB (700GB used)?

Please help.

Timothy Cox

[continuum]

Hi

can't you use Converter 3.0.3 ? - that would be my first choice for 2003




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VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[SporkMan]

I just installed 3.0.3 and got the exact same result, no D volume.

So, I followed some of the troubleshooting guides and checked the log file on the source server at %ALLUSERPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\logs, and found this troubling entry:

Failed to get info for
.\PhysicalDrive1: error Read
.\PhysicalDrive1 disk layout: Incorrect function (1)

Volume
?\Volume{a3cf3132-5d6b-4876-81f5-69f6087b6db8}\ is assosiated with a disk that had been filtered out; filter out the volume as well.

I have attached that log file, which you will note shows several attempts with the same result

So, I'm still up the creek.

[continuum]

what does the disk-layout look like ?

can you show a screenshot of diskmanagement ?




_________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[eeg3]

Any services on the machine that could be putting a disk lock on that volume?

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[SporkMan]

Could not be more basic really, Not Dynamic or anything funky at all, just a hardware raid 5 basic disk.

The only thing that dumb is the page file, which I turned off but will need to schedule a reboot to implement the change, BUT I wouldn't expect that to be an issue?

Tim

[SporkMan]

The server is strictly file & print, there was a few old services but they are uninstalled and/or shut down.

[continuum]

I would do the c: drive with Converter and then do the rest with robocopy in this case.




_________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[SporkMan]

I need to do this in 1 shot, I guess I'll pay for VM support.

Thanks anyways.

[continuum]

are you really sure that the vmfs-blocksize does not prevent this ?




_________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[SporkMan]

Well, the problem rears it's ugly head prior to even choosing a target, so no, it ain't blocksize.

I confirmed with another server with a 1.5TB mirror (that could P2V without issue), my server is the problem. I'm trying to NOT robocopy the tail partition (as I'm looking to virtualize & go live as quickly as possible, like within minutes, and NOT have to deal with permissions or shares (about 50 shares on that volume).

I am going to try a live backup using Acronis & convert that image to a live VM (I've had good luck with Acronis, I suppose I should buy their P2V product)

Just irritates me that I am forced to find a workaround.

[SporkMan]

I forgot about this thread...

As a follow-up, I ended up performing this conversion by doing a cold copy Image with Acronis (from boot CD), then using P2V to import the Acronis image.

It took forever (due to the size of the volume) but it did the job very nicely.

-Timmy