P2V using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone

T

twocell

Member
May 12, 2010
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Hi,

I'm trying to convert a Windows 2003 server using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone. When create a VMware Server 2x image and convert it using:

Code: 
qemu-img convert -f vmdk win2003-pve.vmdk -O qcow2 win2003-pve.qcow2
I get a disk won't boot error in bios. I tried recreating the image as a preallocated disk, but then quemu-img has a problem opening the file:

Code: 
# qemu-img  convert -f vmdk win2003-flat.vmdk -O qcow2 win2003-flat.qcow2
qemu-img: Could not open 'win2003-flat.vmdk'
I'm assuming I don't need to use vmware-vdiskmanager because the converter let's me specify the disk type. Should I select a different target? My options are:

VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Fusion 1.x
VMware Player 2.x
VMware Player 1.x
VMware Server 1.x
VMware Server 2.x
VMware ACE 2.x
VMware ACE 1.x
VMware Workstation 5
VMware Workstation 6
VMware Workstation 6.5

So far I have tried VMware workstation 6.5, which quemu-img says isn't a disk file and Server 2.x.

Thanks for reading ...
 
try vmware server 1.x.
 
I run VMware Workstation 6.5, which doesn't ship with this tool (vmware-vdiskmanager) ... I ended up installing server on a laptop. I've had a couple of conversions fail ... I'll get specifics on this board later.

I've been trying to the specific versions of vmdk that quemu supports. this page indicates 3,4 and 6:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/QEMU/Images

Can anyone verify that? I haven't tried a 6 image yet. Only 6.5.
 
I used the Server 1.x target and a non=preallocated disk. Copied the disk using vmware-vdiskmanager. 'quemu-img convert' converted the disk to qcow2. I add the qcow2 disk and started the vm. Success ... I think. Right now the VNC console shows a black screen & CPU is at 100%. Is this common for the first time boot? I kind of expected a windows boot screen.
 
Black screen is a Java/Firefox issue. I restarted Firefox and it started showing me a bios error:

A disk read error has occurred.
 
well, i did this installing a linux pm with vmware server 2.x for linux then used vmware disk manager. but i suggest you to use one of the other migration methods cited in the wiki, using a livecd and then dd, netcat or fsarchiver, or other. just boot your vmware vm with a livecd iso, use or install the free tools and it'easily done. You could also convert them to LVM raw disks in one single step!

i used the vmware conversion at first but then started doing otherwise, and i think it's better.

Otherwise, you could boot the converted machine with a livecd iso, and use linux tools (gparted) to see what's wrong on the converted disk.

Marco
 
Last edited:
I was able to successfully create a working raw disk image using dd under cygwin. Unfortunately I don't have physical access to the machines so the live image cd's weren't going to work. I had some worries about running dd on the live system disk, but it seems to have worked.
 
good :-) but... dd under cygwin... you cloned the system partition while... it was working?
i never felt this could have been so easy... but, anyway, if it worked...
you could document this particular method on the wiki migration page, aside the selfimage approach.

Marco
 
It seems pretty risky. I'm surprised it didn't corrupt the drive. I may have just been lucky. I'd like to try it a couple more times before I put it on the wiki, but frankly I'm afraid to try it on production systems. Maybe a better approach is to create a Shadow Copy volume and then dd that.
 
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