Migrating VMWare VM's via Clonezilla

[leenux_tux]

Hello Forum,

Having a very odd issue migrating VMWare Windows machines over to PROXMOX using Clonezilla and wondering if anyone else has seen this (and has a solution!).

Here is what I am doing
In the VM on VMWare

• Remove VMware tools
• Run the mergeide.reg file
• Make sure atapi.sys, intelide.sys, pciide.sys and pciindex.sys are present in %SYSTEMROOT%\system32\drivers
• Shutdown
• Boot the VM backup but into Clonezilla

In the VM on Proxmox

• Create a new VM with the same disk size, same RAM and CPU settings
• Attach the clonzilla ISO and boot

I have tried two methods within Clonezilla,

• "savedisk" to an NFS file system then restoring into the PROXMOX VM
• "disk-to-disk" direct from the source VM to the destination VM

When I boot up the PROXMOX VM the console states "Booting from hard disk" and that's as far as it gets. And this has happened for both methods of migration.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated as I have a few VM's I want to migrate over.

thanks in advance

 

[LnxBil]

Your VMware and Proxmox uses IDE drives?

 

[fireon]

I'am running in an similar issue for some month to migrate an win2003 PHY to virtual. There was a problem to detect the right hddbus. Don't know why. I always used the clonezilla method, and when this was not working or to to slow, copied directly with dd. In this case to only way was to use the VMwareconverter (VMware-converter-en-6.1.1-3533064). I have writen an vmdk file. This was immediately able to start in Proxmox. After the first test, i've converted to qcow2, and installed the right drivers. Maybe this will help you to solve your issue.

 

[jeffwadsworth]

I agree with fireon. For migrating from VMWare, I just install VMWare Converter on the VM to migrate and send the resulting VMDK file to my Proxmox shared storage or whatever. You then create a new "hardware matching" VM within Proxmox and map its hard drive to the VMDK file (edit the configuration file of the VM). That method works very well and you never have to power off the migrated box during the process.

 

[1nerdyguy]

I agree with fireon. For migrating from VMWare, I just install VMWare Converter on the VM to migrate and send the resulting VMDK file to my Proxmox shared storage or whatever. You then create a new "hardware matching" VM within Proxmox and map its hard drive to the VMDK file (edit the configuration file of the VM). That method works very well and you never have to power off the migrated box during the process.

Odd question, but will this work with 2 disks setup in a 'spanned volume'? Idiot previous admin did this, and I need to get rid of the machine. 2k8r2, 3 disks, 1 C:, and 2 spanned to create D: hosted on VCenter 5.5 . Of course, those spanned disks are also where the users profiles are stored so..

 

[jeffwadsworth]

Odd question, but will this work with 2 disks setup in a 'spanned volume'? Idiot previous admin did this, and I need to get rid of the machine. 2k8r2, 3 disks, 1 C:, and 2 spanned to create D: hosted on VCenter 5.5 . Of course, those spanned disks are also where the users profiles are stored so..

I never tried it on a spanned volume, but why not install the converter application and test? Of course, make a backup of your data on that spanned volume first and make a snapshot of the VM. You could also create a fourth disk, copy the data from D to it, and then remap that fourth disk to D after removing the other two. I have imported other pre-formated disks into Windows before with VMWare and they worked fine. If unsure, just set up a test VM with the same disk configuration as your current box and test that. As long as you have a backup of the VM, you are good to go.