Passthrough of physical disk works, but VHDX of said disk doesnt boot

[m.brederode]

I'm in the process of Migrating from Hyper-V to proxmox . Hyper-V vm's are all up and running, but I also want the windows server which ran Hyper-V to run in Proxmox (It's also my webserver and appserver).
If I boot up passing through the physical NVME drive as PCI all is well, but If I use the VHDX I created of that drive, the VM doesn't bootup. It eventually loads a windows recovery module that doesn't load up the C drive unless I load the virtio drivers (which are already installed in windows server).

I've tried creating a vhdx of just the C: partition and the whole drive including the recovery and EFI partitions, but to no avail.

I use the qm importdisk command to attach the drive to the vm and have tried SATA, SCSI and IDE.

I'm running out of ideas and was hoping someone here knows what I'm doing wrong.

 

[gfngfn256]

What happens if you make a dd image of the drive & then import that to the VM.

 

[m.brederode]

Will try that as well.
Last thing I tried was to make a windows backup of the physical server. Install a vm with the same windows 2022 and the recovered the backup.

Sadly no boot

 

[_gabriel]

boot once in Safemode, required for Windows to re enable its standard sata and ide controller drivers.
Passthrough as PCI use the NVMe controller driver where sata or ide not. For scsi, install virtio scsi third party driver is required.

 

[m.brederode]

Hi Gabriel, Windows doesn't boot at all atm. (only by using the passthrough method, but I want to use a virtual disk)
How can I get it to boot in safe mode? I've already installed the Virtio drivers btw

 

[_gabriel]

but If I use the VHDX I created of that drive, the VM doesn't bootup. It eventually loads a windows recovery module that doesn't load up the C drive

So, bootloader in EFI part of VHDX is started, you should start "Advanced option" to reboot into menu where Safemode is selectable.
Another way I recommend : https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/windows-doesnt-boot.158725/post-727444

 

[m.brederode]

Whe do I type the commands? Do I do that on the working machine, make a vhdx, import that and then try?

 

[_gabriel]

easier to do on working system.
if you're familiar with WinPE, you can do it offline after qm import.

 

[m.brederode]

I probably am doing something worng, but this is my output:

 

[_gabriel]

bcdedit commands offline must be adjusted, but it's out of scope of PVE.
Swap disk from nvme to sata on bare metal require same procedure.

 

[m.brederode]

Please excuse my noobness, but I don't quite understand what you mean.

 

[_gabriel]

sorry, hard for me to explain/write in English.
As said, easier to do on the working system.

 

[m.brederode]

No worries. Well I can still boot from the working system as long as I pass the nvme drive through to the vm or just boot into windows on the machine itself.
It's just I dont quite understand what I'm supposed to do.

Maybe type it out in French too?

 

[m.brederode]

I've followed the steps above and am now able to boot in safemode. I've verified that all the drivers are installed, but windows still wont boot the 'normal' way...

Any ideas left...?

 

[_gabriel]

is vDisk set as sata type ?
(switch to virtio scsi will have to be done once sata works in normal)

Another way to test is backup/restore with third party instead of import vhdx

 

[m.brederode]

Sadly both options didn't work.
Last thing I have tried is to import the vhdx into hyper v. In hyper v the system bootsup just fine. I've restarted it a couple of times and it doesn't give me any problems.
I then imported the VHDX into Proxmox once again.

Attached the drive as a SATA disk and booted into safe mode just fine.


I then restarted windows but sadly it wont boot. It's stuck on this screen:

 

[_gabriel]

How did you get safemode ?
Because Boot menu if after your screenshot.

 

[m.brederode]

This happens if I let the vm try to boot once, it then eventually starts recovery mode. (Gui version) And then it wil try to boot normally if I select that option.

 

[_gabriel]

Have you set correct "Boot order" in Options of the VM ?

 

[m.brederode]

Only have the one disk attached atm and that's set as the only boot device