[SOLVED] Migrate a Physical Windows Server 2016 Essentials to Proxmox.

[Jarvar]

Hello Everybody

I have been trying to migrate Physical Windows Server 2016 Essentials to Proxmox VE 6. I have followed the instructions on https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Migration_of_servers_to_Proxmox_VE at the bottom. I have tried using Clonezilla, but couldn't get it working. I have also tried a migration using the VMware Converter method at the bottom and could not find any success. I keep getting a hanging system with the message "booting from hard disk"
I have tried, IDE, Sata, SCSI and none of them have worked. I have tried, VMDK, raw and qcow2 formats.
I have not had any success with migrating a VirtualDox working VDI into Proxmox as well.
I'm sure many have done this, so I would be open to any advice or assistance that could be provided.
Thank you,

 

[Jarvar]

First setup your defaults for a Windows 10/2016 VM in Proxmox.
For hard drives, I used IDE or SATA, as long as it corresponds with the Hardware settings and Boot options.
We are going to delete these hard drives after.
After the VM is created, go to Hardware for that VM and select the Hard Drive, detach them and then remove them while the VM is off.

We will import the disks from the Disk2vhd VHDX later for the drives.
And then we will import the disks made using Disk2vhd.

What I eventually figured out was the simplest is using Sysinternals Disk2vhd. For some reason I needed to open up Command Prompt run as

Administrator and enter command

mountvol :a /S

This brings up the ESP partition which is essential to making things work. I found without this the system does not boot.
Next, I launch Disk2vhd as adminstrator as well,
Now I just save as a VHDX and uncheck the snapshotting. For some reason it fails if selected, so I choose to run this when the server is not being used.

After I save the system as VHDX, I upload them to Proxmox storage or the local /root folder and then open a shell console for the node.

qm importdisk <vmid> <filename.VHDX> <storage>

The VMID is the one that corresponds with the Initial VM setup with Proxmox.
We run this command for however many disks you have. In my case, I had disk-0 and disk-1 so I ran this twice. You also need to keep in mind which is the boot drive and which is the data drive. The boot drive should be the first drive setup under ide0 or sata0. It doesn't necessarily have to be done this way, but after you import the disks you will see them as unused disks which you need to attach. You can just attach the boot drive first, or select it under boot order. But for the sake of simplicity it's probably better to just go with an easier to understand setup,

If you had IDE and now it's SATA, you have to make sure those settings are reflected in Options-Boot Order.
Somtimes I had IDE still selected when the disks were Sata and it would not work.

The thing with the particular setup of Windows Server I had was that I needed to change the BIOS under Hardware settings to OVMF (UFEI)
Hardware->BIOS->OVMF(UFEI)
There will be a message about adding an EFI disk which we add after.
You go to Add->EFI disk after.
Then you should be able to start your VM and it will recognize the disks and see "Getting Things Ready" with progress ring under Windows.

After you get that started you can make changes to the network settings if it is on a different network.
I also followed this https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_10_guest_best_practices
to eventually isntall the VIRTIO drivers.

 

[Leo David]

Hi,
I am trying to do the same thing with Win2008R2 and Win2012R2.
But they both throw:

"C:\Windows\system32>mountvol :a /S
The parameter is incorrect."

C:\Windows\system32>mountvol A: /S
The parameter is incorrect.
- does not work either...

Cmd was started as Administrator.

The resulting vhdx is not bootable in both cases.
Any ideea why that error for the "mountvol" command happening ? Do I miss something else ?

Thank you !

 

[Jarvar]

Do you have an A: drive already?
What are you using to try and boot your VHDX?

 

[Leo David]

Hi Jarvar,

Thank you for helping me out.
- drive A: does not exist
- i have imported the resulted vhdx to a proxmox vm and attached as an both ide and sata drive - no luck, it seems not to find the bootloader, the disk is not bootable at all. So I assume that partition needs to be present in the vhdx.
I am wondering if maybe I am encountering this bug:
https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/windows-itpro-docs/issues/1776
Anyways, I have manually assigned a letter to the 100MB "System Reserved" partition from disks management UI, and doing the vhdx export again, with "Use Volume Shadow Copy" option unchecked.
I will paste the results as soon as the process finishes, maybe this time I will have some more luck.
Thanks,

Leo

 

[Leo David]

Hi,
No luck so far, the vm still not booting. Looks like the disk is still non-bootable...
Any thoughts ?

Thank you,

Leo

 

[Jarvar]

Hmm. Not sure what the error is.
I did this a while ago and the I had to do it again recently.
Did you make sure to create a VM for Windows first, then delete the disks and then:
qm importdisk <vmid> <filename.VHDX> <storage>

I remember skipping that part and then it wouldn't boot up properly. For me I also had to change the BIOS to add an EFI
DId you try adding a different drive letter? with the same results?
I had to uncheck Volume Shadow copy.
Mine wouldn't even start if it was checked, but I'm using Windows Essentials 2016.

 

[Jarvar]

Hi,
No luck so far, the vm still not booting. Looks like the disk is still non-bootable...
Any thoughts ?

Thank you,

Leo

Were you able to mountvol a: /S ?
Were you able to use Disk2vhd? Run as administrator? And get a clean VHDX of the OS?
If those aren't completed successfully, I'm not sure if the system will boot...

 

[maxprox]

also remember that you can repair the Win VM just like a physical one:
for example take one Windows ISO, or https://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/ or what else to repair it....

 

[Leo David]

Hi,
VM still not booting.

Were you able to mountvol a: /S ? - No, i am facing that error...
Were you able to use Disk2vhd? Run as administrator? And get a clean VHDX of the OS? - Yes

It would have been a nice way if I could achieve the migration this way, since the bare metal server does not have an iDrac/iLo card that would help me doing it with clonnezilla.
I'm still not very sure how should I proceed to have these two bare metal servers virtualised...
I will try the disk repair method also, maybe i'll have some luck this way.

 

[Jarvar]

Hi,
VM still not booting.


It would have been a nice way if I could achieve the migration this way, since the bare metal server does not have an iDrac/iLo card that would help me doing it with clonnezilla.
I'm still not very sure how should I proceed to have these two bare metal servers virtualised...
I will try the disk repair method also, maybe i'll have some luck this way.

I'm really sorry to hear about all your troubles.
I'm sure if you can get the disk2vhd working, it would make things easier. The other possibility is not using VHDX, just VHD.
But again if the mountvol is showing an error then it wouldn't get an accurate grab of your OS and drives.
The mountvol a: /S is necessary to get your ESP volume for booting. Without that the VM won't boot properly.
Also I had to change the bios to OVMF and add an EFI disk.

It was very frustrating for me when I first started, now I do it quite often, but with the same system. I should probably just virutalize their system at that location alltogether.
It took me a while of trial and error as well, and coverting to qcow and so on. There are other suggestions such as using vmware converter for a physical to virtual conversion, but I didn't get it to work.
I personally didn't have any luck with Clonezilla, but I heard lots of people have used it and it works.

 

[alen789]

Hi Jarvar,
any licencing issue with Windows. I have OEM licence Win 2016 Essential and thinking do to P2V on the same server.

 

[Jarvar]

Hi Jarvar,
any licencing issue with Windows. I have OEM licence Win 2016 Essential and thinking do to P2V on the same server.

Yeah that is the tricky thing. For one of the servers we had, we were using Windows 2016 Essentials. The software they were using along with a Xray sensor didn't "officially" support Windows Essentials, but then again it didn't officially support anything beyond Windows 2008 or Windows 2012 Standard. I spoke with their tech support and they mentioned it was an SQL vs. SQL Express issue eventually if they moved towards Panoramic X Rays or 3 D Xrays. Anyways, I mentioned it to the boss so we moved to Windows 2019 Standard atleast. Before we were on an OEM Version of Windows 2016 Essentials, which is legally tied to the Dell machine we bought with it. With the Standard 2019 version, I purchased an open volume liscence version which should allow for 2 Virtual Machines, as long as we didn't exceed the 16 cores or something like that.
Right now we have it running as a VM on a different piece of hardware from the original one, but then again we also bought a new license.

As for the2016 OEM license, I do believe you can convert it P2V on the same server, that is allowed..
I've been doing that for another office, but only on weekends also as a backup. Eventually I will try to transition things over when I have some more time. Currenty lots of offices are on hiatus because of the lockdowns. I make a backup on weekends and convert the disk2vhd images to Proxmomx ones and then I have a virtual backup of the physical machine. I just need to get around to installing the PVE on the original hardware and then transfer the VM back... They are running Windows 2016 Essentials OEM.

 

[Gustavo Spadari]

Hi @Jarvar.

Thank you for the step-by-step. It's worked very well, but I noticed that when I turn off the VM, I can't start it again. The process gets stuck at "BdsDxe: loading Boot......", with the Proxmox logo and "Start boot option" in the footer. The little white dots will never appear.
If I revert to the first snapshot I made (which I never booted), It boots ok. Also, I'm able to restart the VM without any issues several times. But, as soon I turn it off, I'm not able to boot it again.

Any idea what could be the problem?

Thank you very much.
Gustavo.

 

[maxprox]

Hi @Jarvar.

Thank you for the step-by-step. It's worked very well, but I noticed that when I turn off the VM, I can't start it again. The process gets stuck at "BdsDxe: loading Boot......", with the Proxmox logo and "Start boot option" in the footer. The little white dots will never appear.
If I revert to the first snapshot I made (which I never booted), It boots ok. Also, I'm able to restart the VM without any issues several times. But, as soon I turn it off, I'm not able to boot it again.

Any idea what could be the problem?

Thank you very much.
Gustavo.

Hi Gustavo,

I think it is because the boot device? Have a look under the VM Options and there under "Boot Order"
and start the VM under the Command-Line with "qm start VMID" there you get a long line in which you get the error, perhaps ....
try it

regards,
maxprox

 

[maxprox]

also have a look under "Hardware": BIOS, Display, Machine should be "Default", without dedicated drivers also SCSI Controller should be "Default"
CD/DVD "Do not yous any media"
Is the OS Type correct under the "Options" ?
...

 

[sdsheridan]

Hi,
No luck so far, the vm still not booting. Looks like the disk is still non-bootable...
Any thoughts ?

Thank you,

Leo

I think the problem here is it needs to be "a:" not ":a"

mountvol a: /s