Physical server to Proxmox VE (KVM) using Clonezilla Live CDs

[donmay]

Hello guys please i am trying to virtualize a physical server to proxmox....the server is running sbs 2008
server and i have followed the installation instruction here.
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Migration_of_servers_to_Proxmox_VE
the clonezilla approach ...But after cloning the server and booting it up....it continued having blue screens....

please am do i need to do this line below for sbs 2008?
prepare the source host, make sure that you have standard IDE drivers enabled (for winxp/win2003 just use the mergeide.reg, for w2k I followed this link (solution 2 worked for me)....

 

[mmenaz]

I've not migrated a 2008 so far, but the problem with physical to virtual is due to the fact that Windows does not "adapt" dynamically to the new hardware like GNU/Linux does instead.
So if your 2008 during installation needs some driver for the disk access that are not IDE, then the IDE drivers are not available to that host/are not used, so if you move to a PC (virtual or physical) with IDE controller, it does not boot.
The "trick" is to set 2008 to use IDE drivers on the physical PC, then shut down and move in the virtual installation, when once rebooted will find IDE "hardware" and will be setup to boot properly.
Of course you have to create the empty VM setting HD mode to IDE.
Hope it helps

 

[donmay]

Thank you again for your honest and helpful reply....could you tell me or show me how to do this on the physical small business server 2008
The "trick" is to set 2008 to use IDE drivers on the physical PC...

How do i set the sbs 2008 to use ide drivers?

 

[sapphiron]

I have done it a few times

as Mmenaz stated, migrate using IDE disks to start with.

Once in the OS:
1. install the virtio drivers
2. shut the machine down
3. disconnect the drives from the VM
4. reconnect, this time as Virtio disks
5. start VM

 

[tarax]

Hi,

Few days ago I had very hard times virtualizing a W2003 installation. After trying all my best with FOSS tools, I was advised by co-workers to give ShadowProtect a try... which revealed as a life saver !
As a deep hard FOSS advocate, I sadly have to admit that this tool, and specificaly its "Hardware Independant Restore" feature _just_rocks_ !
Download the trial version and the Recovery Environment boot CD.
Make an image of your system installing the trial version on a live system, or booting from the RE, on a local device or on a smb/cifs share on your network. (imaging is really fast).
Boot you VM with RE CD image, configure network and network drive if needed, and restore drive image on VM drives. Oh! and you can configure your VM with VirtIO devices from the beginning as there is an option to load drivers in the RE (which is a customized WinPE).
After restoring the drive images, the HIR can be launched: it makes an hardware inventory, shows you a list of it with selected drivers and level of confidence, and allows you to add folders where missing drivers can be found (and yes, VirtIO drivers too!). It then does its magic and "injects" all the provided drivers into the restored system.
Reboot your VM and say goodbye to BSODs !

AFAIC, it worked beautifully for the virtualization of a HP ML350 W2003 server with all HP specific drivers and management stuffs. It allowed me to inject Intel ICH9 driver downloaded from Intel's website to provide missing AHCI driver and even to restore straight to virtio block devices on a second run.

Including removing all HP softwares and cleaning up all hidden devices after booting the VM, from never installed to clean running virtualized machine, job was done in 2h30 !

Hope it helps

 

[bhennigar]

The wiki has just been updated to include how to convert a Windows server to KVM using the VMware vCenter converter
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Migrati...o_Proxmox_VE_.28KVM.29_using_VMware_Converter