BESR P2V Conversion Problem

[mmeeggaann]

Hi everyone!

I need some help... the situation is the following:

I'm trying to migrate 2 physical servers to VMware VM using BESR. The product is being tested. We already virtualize one of the two servers without a problem, but the other one simply doesn't boot.

The physical servers are different models of Dell server and one difference between them is the SCSI controller :

    * Dell PE 1750 (the one cannot be virtualized)

                  DELL PERC 4/Di on Motherboard Driver

    * Dell PE 750 (the server already virtualized)

                  DELL PERC 4/DC RAID Controller

Both of them are running Windows Server 2003 SE SP2 (32bits) and have two volumes C (for OS) and D (for data).

We are using BESR 2010 9.0.2.37914 on Windows Server 2008 R2 EE.

ESXi 4.1 running on a server HP DL 380 G6. The VM version is 7.

About the VM configuration....the SCSIcontroller type is LSI Logic Parallel.

The P2V procedure I did was:

1. Take the recovery point of C and D volumes
2. Virtualize them using "one time virtual conversion" wizard, the type was "ESX Server" wich generate the vmdk and saved it into the specified datastore.
3. Boot the VM

Has anyone done something like this?

Is there a BESR step or extra configuration that is missing?

I've working on it about a week and I'm running out of ideas. I really appreciate if someone can help me :)

Thanks a lot.

[Sush---]

Could you please elaborate like what exactly happens when you try to boot that other VM??

Does it keeps on restarting in loop?

Does it gives any kind of error like any file not found??

Or does it Blue screen??

Also have you tried to boot that VM in Safe mode......?? Please try this steps and see if it gives any messages of any drivers not installed ot anything.

Thanks,

-Sush...

[mmeeggaann]

Hi Sush,

I didn't get any errors either at the time of taking the recovery point nor the virtualization process,  the job completed successfully and created the vmdk file.

At the time of power on the VM, the console show a black screen, and that's it all I get. So, I think I'm not able to test booting in saved mode :( any other idea?

Thanks.

[jbtsabw]

Why don't you use the VM converter that you can get free from VMware instead?

[mmeeggaann]

Because BESR is being tested, so we have to probe this producto can do it.

[jbtsabw]

For a test, fire up the VMware Stand Alone Converter, set the source type to Backup Image or Third Party Virtual Machine and browse to your C drive recovery point.  See if you can get it to work that way.  That might give you some insight as to whether it is a problem with BESR, with your backup image or with that machine type running in VMware. 

We don't have any 1750s (only as far back as 1850s) in production anymore, so unfortunately, I can't do what you are doing on my end.  I do have one in the lab and I will see if I can set something up in there.  Howerver, the 1750 I can use as a test does not have the same controller as you list, so that may not be helpful.