Problems with pc migration

[newmacowner]

I have downloaded and installed the free trial of VMware Fusion 5.02 on my mac mini (mountain lion os x 10.8.2).

I am trying to migrate my pc (windows xp pro sp3, not oem, fully updated) to my mac.

I have successfully installed PC Migration Agent on my PC.

I have turned off the firewall on the pc and turned off 'shields' on avast antivirus on the pc.

The mac firewall is off and file sharing is allowed.

I have tried both using a direct ethernet connection (the cable I am using is known to work) between the machines with the passcode option and also my local network via ethernet with the ip address option.

In both cases when I have entered the PC Administrator user name and password section I get the following error message:

"Convertor failed to connect to the remote machine. A secure connection to the server could not be established".

Have you got any ideas about what I need to do to get this to work?

Many thanks.

[newmacowner]

Just to add I downloaded the pc migration agent from

http://www.vmware.com/go/pc2mac

on to my pc as indicated when I follow the step by step migration assistant on the mac. It installed fine and provided the passcode. I connected the two machines via a short working ethernet cable when using the pass code opiton. I have tried many restarts and reboots. But the problem persists. over and over again.

[avanish321]

Does the user name contain spaces? ex john carter is not supported , but johncarter is supported. username cannot have special characters either.

Also, you must ensure to turn off antivirus and firewall apps if they are running in the pc

In any case try to create a new user account in windows and try migrating after logging into the new useraccount with admin rights.

If that fails try the vcenter standalone convertor

[WoodyZ]

AFAIC the Migrate your PC... function in VMware Fusion is a half baked implementation of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone and is often problematic for some uses to get a connection between the source and destination and I'd never use it under any circumstances whatsoever.  Instead I properly* prepare the source system for imaging and use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone saving the Virtual Machine to an external drive and transfer from there if I wanted the VM on the internal disk on the Host system.

* "properly* prepare" can take on different scenarios however generally speaking with a Windows source as an example at a minimum run Disk Cleanup before imaging.  If the intent is to no longer use the physical machine and also have its user data actually reside on the Host's File System then prior to creating the Virtual Machine I'd make a separate backup and transfer of the User Data and then delete it from the source.  Additionally I'd zero-out the free space after the remaining clean up.  Then install VMware vCenter Converter Standalone on the source system and while walking through the Wizard make appropriate choices to create a right-sized and type virtual hard disk.  If the VM is going to be stored/transferred/run from a external hard drive that is formatted FAT32 then make sure you split the virtual disk in 2 GB segments.  Also if there will be limited free space on either internal or external storage using a split disk will facilitate snapshot removal and shrinking/cleaning up the virtual dial as the VM is used even if its filesystem can handle the size of a monolithic type disk from a initial storage capacity.  Additionally after cleanup and before installing VMware vCenter Converter Standalone I'd Defrag the source if it's using an HDD vs. an SSD.

Obviously there are other scenarios however the main thing it to think through the process before beginning so as to optimize the end results with expending the least energy and effort and starting with a clean source is usually easier and faster then having to cleanup a VM created of an unprepared source system.

[newmacowner]

Thank you but it just finally worked on another reboot of the pc:

I got that from the last post in this thread here

communities.vm.com/thread/240391

paste isn't working for me at the moment so I can't paste it here

I had left the box checked and rebooted my pc (quite a few times!) before. It didn't work then. I think it needs two pc reboots in a row.

So here's hoping that the migration is now successful! 12% completed so far. Plenty that could yet go wrong!

[newmacowner]

Just got it working before I saw your posts. Not sure I chose a good place to put it. But just have to hope it works out I guess. I'm not totally sure I would understand how to split disks etc.