Thread: Repair a Win 2k3 Install when moving a HDD to new hardware

Hi

I am trying to restore a Server image (using R1soft) from a physcial P4 to a virtual machine.

I get BSOD (blue screen of death) on boot, i can boot on to the windows 2003 CD and run the Repair tool, I tried chkdsk /r and fixbr (fix boot record)
none of them fixed my problem.

has anyone done this before? if so what did you do?

I have attached the error from the vmware monitor (vmware 2.0 server)

Could this be related to the HDD/RAID drivers? Did the old machine have RAID and the VM is trying to boot with RAID drivers? Or perhaps some other sort of HDD driver issue?

hi

the old machine did not have raid it was a single hard disk 160GB. the VM is a single 160GB Virtual Drive too, the physical machine has Raid but that wont show on a virtual machine.

It's not showing Inaccessible Boot Device which I'd associate with RAID / Boot driver issues..

Certainly some sort of issue though.

Personally I'd not use R1soft, but the VMWare Hot or Cold Virtualization CD / Software.

J

hi

is there some app VMWare provide to help assist move from physical to virtual?

Originally Posted by chrisbuk

hi

is there some app VMWare provide to help assist move from physical to virtual?

VMware vCenter Converter, Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines I believe

What virtual hardware do you have set in your VM config? I usually find that the buslogic controller is best on first boot for some reason, then swap to one of the LSI ones after the initial vmware tools install.

Is it because you've moved from single processor to uni-processor? The Windows HAL doesn't allow this - try emulating a "pile of junk" server in VMware and try again..

Its not the famous issue windows drivers failing to update.. I always thought that when you moved an OS platform to a different mobo/platform you have to do a repair install for windows to re-config its self correctly.

Deffo give Vmware Converter a go. Never had a problem with win2k3 and i've done hundreds of conversions. Usually Win2k that throws up issues.