hard drives to vmdk file

[lawson23]

Ok here is my situation.

I have 3 hard drives that were in a PC that has been junked. What I need to do is get these hard drives into a VM environment.

So I have (NTFS without EFS):

HD1 - OS drive

HD2 - Data drive

HD3 - Backup Drive

OS drive is most important so it can see the other drives. The other two drives really don't need to become a VM just visible to the VM.

Can someone please suggest the best way to go about doing this? Maybe point me to some articles discussing this type of process.

[continuum]

Can you temporarily attach this disks one by one to a free IDE-port of your host ?

Or do you have a IDE-2-USB adapter ?

First method is the easiest - second one is more tricky but you do not need to reboot or open your box.

When you can read those 3 disks from your host-system you can convert them into regular virtual-disks with vmware-vdiskmanager.

If you attach them as IDE you don't need to fiddle with the resulting vmdks.

If you attach them via USB you will have to manually change the result from SCSI - to IDE. This is tricky - I'll guide you thru the procedure if you want.

Tell me which option you prefer

Ulli

[lawson23]

Yes I can do this and I will connect them via IDE.

[continuum]

Good - we will walk thru a variant of this procedure:

http://sanbarrow.com/moa-video-vdiskmanager-as-ghost.html

Please read thru it - in this case we don't need any of the network/BartPE/LiveCD stuff.

If you can not follow that procedure - don't make any stunts - and tell me what is unclear so that I can explain what is different in your scenario.

Ulli

[lawson23]

Ok I understand it.

One question.

run the vdiskmanager with -r option and convert into a split disk we safe in Q:\

Why do you use the Split option?

Also will this (vmdk) be the size of the used space or of the entire drive?

[continuum]

Hi

replace Q: with a path that fits your needs of course.

I use the split-disk type because I never use the monolithic growing type.

I can only recommend to do the same.

Ok - you can use the monolithic preallocated type when you really need very large disks - but avoid the monolithicSparse \!!!

If you are interested in the reason for this I can show you some posts that will convince you.

About the size - if you use growing disks the resulting vmdk will be very likely smaller than the original disk - you can improve that ratio by creating a wiperfile on the physical disk before you the convert-action.

Try the "prepare for shrinking" option of the vdiskmanager against the physical disk before you convert.

Don;t know if it works - I always use a little tool that you download on the "ghost4unix" website (google knows it)

[lawson23]

Ok I did this but here is my problem I'm not getting a blue screen when booting into the install.

Here are a few items to note and I can always go back and rebuild the VMDK file if I did something wrong.

This is installed in Linux and I had to install the grub installer on the original disk containing the 2k3 install. So what I did was build the vmdk and remove grub by booting into recovery console and running:

FIXBOOT C:

FIXMBR

BOOTCFG /rebuild

I don't think it is an issue with the bootloader as it starts to boot windows but quickly gives blue screen. I think this is more of a hal issue.

Any ideas?

[continuum]

It would help to know the exact BSOD-message - set

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl - AutoReboot to "0" so that you can see the BSOD.

[lawson23]

Ok I can't do this till later. Question I can't edit the registry through rec. console can I? Should I boot into Windows set the key then rebuild the VMDK files?

[RDPetruska]

Can you boot into safe mode? You should be able to change the registry from there...

[lawson23]

I'm going from memory but if it serves me correct I can't boot into safe mode which is consistent with a HAL.DLL issue.

Which is common when you swap a motherboard or something. Basically I think it is using a different hal that what the VM sets for hardware.

[continuum]

Don't you have another Windows-VM or a BartPE which you could use to change that setting ?

I doubt that it will crash because of any HAL-issues. WS 3 VMs used a different hal than VMware uses today but you can start them without problems.

Very likely its a BSOD 7b - missconfigured mass-storage ...

[lawson23]

Took a screen shot:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:

\*** Stop: 0x0000007B (0xFA0D2A98, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

[continuum]

Check this post:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=31448&tstart=0

in one of the latest entries I posted a reg-patch that you should use to fix the ide-drivers

[lawson23]

FYI for an update I just wanted to let everyone know I just did a repair install of win2k3 and this fixed the problem for now.

Thanks for everyones help. Now I have to figure out how to get my other drives into the virtual machine.

Drive E and F which are physical drives that need to become either part of the VMDK or different vmdk files.