P2V -- windows 11 to proxmox

[rofo69]

i've created a VDMK file from an existing physical disk containing a windows install and scp'd it to my proxmox server.

Before I did this, I installed the Virtio drivers so that they would be in the VDMK file.

I can successfully import the disk and attach it to my windows 11 VM, but when windows starts, it cannot see the hard drive, which I think is due to the required Virtio drivers (but this is a guess), so i end up in the windows recovery boot loop.

I'm sure someone has got this working, but I'm very new to proxmox and looking for help!

 

[jsterr]

You cant preinstall virtio drivers, because windows only includes them into the boot-loading when there was a virtio-drive present when you installed the driver (which I guess was not the case). Change to ide then you can boot, add a temporary second disk with virtio, install drivers, change boot-drive to virtio, check boot, remove temporary second disk.

 

[rofo69]

That worked perfectly... ty!

Given that it 'works' with IDE, whats the benefit of using the virtio drivers at all ?

Also, when creating a 'fresh' windows VM, the default for disk type is scsi, which I also assume does not need the virt drivers ?

 

[aaron]

Given that it 'works' with IDE, whats the benefit of using the virtio drivers at all ?

Less overhead and potentially longer timeouts in case the underlying storage isn't responding. IO threading also doesn't work with IDE/SATA IIRC.

Also, when creating a 'fresh' windows VM, the default for disk type is scsi, which I also assume does not need the virt drivers ?

Did you choose Windows as guest OS? That has an effect on the defaults in the following sections of the VM create wizard.

But on a new VM you can choose the VirtIO disk and NICs and then add a second CD ROM drive where you choose the VirtIO driver ISO. With PVE 8.1 there should be an option for that in the VM creation wizard when Windows is selected as guest OS.

Then in the installation when it comes to selecting the disk to install it to, you can install additional drivers. For the VirtIO SCSI disks, the path would be: VirtIO ISO:\vioscsi\...
For VirtIO Block it should be the "viostor" directory IIRC.

 

[rofo69]

Indeed I choose windows as the guest OS when creating the new VM, and it gave me the option to add a virtual CD drive with the VirtIO ISO that I'd uploaded to Proxmox before hand, but I was wrong... the default disk type is IDE (I just tried it), so I was wrong in my recollection.

What I did note was that if I choose to add the virtual CD drive, it ends up ahead of the windows ISO in the boot order. As a noob to Proxmox, that confused me for a while.