Old Win 2003 Server to VMWare Woes

[Paperlantern]

So I mucked around with the install CD. Seems it will boot fine and install on LSI Parallel on VMX version 4 but not 7. I went and dug out a "2003R2 server with Service Pack 2" CD and mapped the CDROM locally to it and that one did find storage on VMX version 7. Maybe my .ISO is old. Doesn't matter that much anymore since we are 2008R2 now.

Well it matters a little since 2003R2 w/ SP2 is what I have to work with for valid licensing. i have no 2008 at my disposal. But its not like this is a business environment, this is my home, im not TOO concerned with the latest and greatest.

As a side note, I looked at the media I have and it is as stated above, it is Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition w/SP2. The old server, in the system properties, is showing "Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition". No service packs, no revisions, just straight Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. Like i said, it's old.

So would the relatively drastic difference in media cause my issue? Or am I still looking at a driver related problem?

 

[imagoon]

Well it matters a little since 2003R2 w/ SP2 is what I have to work with for valid licensing. i have no 2008 at my disposal. But its not like this is a business environment, this is my home, im not TOO concerned with the latest and greatest.

As a side note, I looked at the media I have and it is as stated above, it is Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition w/SP2. The old server, in the system properties, is showing "Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition". No service packs, no revisions, just straight Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. Like i said, it's old.

So would the relatively drastic difference in media cause my issue? Or am I still looking at a driver related problem?

Yeah you can't repair Enterprise with standard or 2003 with R2. While the core is the same, MS considers them different OS's. This is one of the things they changed in 2008 thankfully.

 

[quikah]

Just booted a 2003 CD on 4.1u1, LSI storage 40gb VMDK "no storage devices found." Someone obviously embedded the driver in to your install image.

I am using image from MSDN. LSI parallel, works fine. LSI SAS doesn't work since it wasn't included in Win2003 until R2 I think (sorry, I made the error previously implying any LSI worked).

Also, there is no LSI driver in vmware tools.

 

[Paperlantern]

Yeah you can't repair Enterprise with standard or 2003 with R2. While the core is the same, MS considers them different OS's. This is one of the things they changed in 2008 thankfully.

I was afraid of that. I started an install of a fresh VM however, I will TRY to put it together the same way the old one was configured and use the old data files from the web server and such, right now that seems easier then trying to stop this install blue screening.

My last ditch effort before doing all that is going to be to find a copy of the Enterprise media that matches this install to see if anyone has a copy i can borrow. I know some people.

 

[imagoon]

I was afraid of that. I started an install of a fresh VM however, I will TRY to put it together the same way the old one was configured and use the old data files from the web server and such, right now that seems easier then trying to stop this install blue screening.

My last ditch effort before doing all that is going to be to find a copy of the Enterprise media that matches this install to see if anyone has a copy i can borrow. I know some people.

Since you got the NIC running, have you tried using VMWare's P2V or are you still working with the Ghost image?

 

[quikah]

Are you actually getting the error

STOP 0x0000007B INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

Try going through the steps here: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006295

 

[Paperlantern]

Since you got the NIC running, have you tried using VMWare's P2V or are you still working with the Ghost image?

I actually got the NIC working in the old server and got it on the network. I installed the standalone virtualization tool and ran it. It imported the server into esxi, however i still have the same problem, it blue screens after a second or two of the Server 2003 splash screen. *facepalm*

Yep.

I'm not sure what the stop error is, i'm about to go home for the day but i'll try and get the stop error at some point tomorrow morning or afternoon (going out this evening). Thanks for all the posts guys.

 

[imagoon]

Ok so I was bored and dug around on VMWare's site about this issue. Specifically the AMD > Intel issues they had. Is your ESXi host Intel now? You did mentioned a thunderbird core which was AMD on the old machine. They also suggested that you skip the repair and ask the cd to "upgrade" the virtual machine. That may fix it while keeping apps. You can always snap shot it ahead of time if you need to.

This goes back to Larry's suggestion it might be a HAL issue.

Obviously the Bluescreen code will tell us what the issue really is.

 

[Emulex]

you realize when you P2V the vcenter server needs to have the sysprep for the o/s (2k3 xp 2k3R2) or it won't work.

And never try to P2V an AD role server.

I've had zero problems. hot works fine if you shutdown all services.

You did have sysprep installed on the vcenter server before you did the p2v? essentially the import process handles the rest for you. just leave the # of vcpu the same.

 

[imagoon]

you realize when you P2V the vcenter server needs to have the sysprep for the o/s (2k3 xp 2k3R2) or it won't work.

And never try to P2V an AD role server.

I've had zero problems. hot works fine if you shutdown all services.

You did have sysprep installed on the vcenter server before you did the p2v? essentially the import process handles the rest for you. just leave the # of vcpu the same.

You don't need sysprep to P2V servers. Only time you sysprep is if you intend to use that server as a template. And you can P2V AD if you take the proper precautions. You do it in AD recovery mode on 2000 / 2003. You stop and disable the service in 2008(r2).

I have P2V's over 50 servers in this is Enterprise and have not used sysprep on any one them. 15ish of those were AD servers.

 

[Paperlantern]

you realize when you P2V the vcenter server needs to have the sysprep for the o/s (2k3 xp 2k3R2) or it won't work.

And never try to P2V an AD role server.

I've had zero problems. hot works fine if you shutdown all services.

You did have sysprep installed on the vcenter server before you did the p2v? essentially the import process handles the rest for you. just leave the # of vcpu the same.

Im still a relative vmware noobie, i dont know what you mean by have sysprep installed on the vcenter before you did the p2v. I thought sysprep was just something you did to an OS before you image it so deployments can be done to dissimilar hardware.

This WAS an AD server at one time, but that role was stopped long before now, could that still be a problem?

 

[imagoon]

Im still a relative vmware noobie, i dont know what you mean by have sysprep installed on the vcenter before you did the p2v. I thought sysprep was just something you did to an OS before you image it so deployments can be done to dissimilar hardware.

This WAS an AD server at one time, but that role was stopped long before now, could that still be a problem?

You don't want to sysprep, it will strip the security information out the machine. There is only a couple very specific instances where you want to sysprep the image prior to import. This isn't one of them. As I said above, have P2V'd 50 production servers and not once needed to use sysprep on them. These included AD servers. I have done countless more in test environments. The key thing with P2V is to make sure that you stop all transactions (for example in AD you boot in AD Restore mode) and block file access / stop dfs / dfsr etc.

 

[Paperlantern]

You don't want to sysprep, it will strip the security information out the machine. There is only a couple very specific instances where you want to sysprep the image prior to import. This isn't one of them. As I said above, have P2V'd 50 production servers and not once needed to use sysprep on them. These included AD servers. I have done countless more in test environments. The key thing with P2V is to make sure that you stop all transactions (for example in AD you boot in AD Restore mode) and block file access / stop dfs / dfsr etc.

Well the way he said it, it made it sound like it was something i had to have on the esxi server prior to actually doing the p2v, like something that installs on the esxi server. Yeah, im still relatively lost here. Ive been using vmware and vcenter for a couple years, but most of my dealings have been only in creating new machines, templates, snapshots. Pretty basic stuff, ive never done a p2v myself before so this is the first one, and it appears ive picked a pretty rough one to bust my cherry on it.

Tomorrow I will attempt to see if i can get a look at the stop code.

How would i run an upgrade? When i use the 2003 server disc that i have, it does not see the old install and only gives me the option to install a new installation.

Yes the old server was AMD and this one is now an Intel Xeon.

 

[Paperlantern]

Fired it up this morning, looks like a fairly generic blue screen, though it does mention Hard drives or hard drive controllers as a possible issue. Which makes sense. Error below:

 

[imagoon]

Fired it up this morning, looks like a fairly generic blue screen, though it does mention Hard drives or hard drive controllers as a possible issue. Which makes sense. Error below:

7B is "missing storage adapter." (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) I think it is. You need to run a repair with the correct edition of the CD.

 

[quikah]

Try the kb I linked to earlier.

 

[Paperlantern]

Try the kb I linked to earlier.

Trying this now, currently at 5% complete, i will post back when it's done.


Edit*

No change, after installing the scsi driver before converting, it still bombs, same stop error too.

 

[Paperlantern]

Last resort, I have media that matches the installed version of windows here, I will attempt a repair install.

 

[Paperlantern]

Repair install went off seemingly without a hitch. it saw the existing install, it completed the repair, however it is still blue screening. The only difference now is you dont even get ANY Server 2003 splash screen. I just don't get it guys. i even tried a chkdsk /r like the bluescreen suggest just a as longshot, but it just hangs after typing the command. Tells me when the volume was created, what the volume serial number is, and then thats it, no other activity. So stumped...

 

[imagoon]

Repair install went off seemingly without a hitch. it saw the existing install, it completed the repair, however it is still blue screening. The only difference now is you dont even get ANY Server 2003 splash screen. I just don't get it guys. i even tried a chkdsk /r like the bluescreen suggest just a as longshot, but it just hangs after typing the command. Tells me when the volume was created, what the volume serial number is, and then thats it, no other activity. So stumped...

Very strange. I have never needed to battle this far through it before. Most of mine went off without a hitch. Biggest issue was the Dell DRAC's breaking the P2V but once I had found that they all converted.

 

[Paperlantern]

I'm wondering if i need to start over again from scratch and disable a bunch more drivers before converting. I dunno. Just stumped.

 

[Paperlantern]

Was able to virtualize this at my office. We were slow today and my boss and I sat down to figure it out. We have a booting and working VM now. Ive exported an ova file from our system, i have it on a flash drive and I will be bringing it home to import, so we shall see what we shall see.

 

[Paperlantern]

Import successful, system is up and running. Thanks for all the input guys.

 

[Paperlantern]

Now... the question is, how do I duplicate the setup I had and have a DATA drive as the D drive around the 200GB range without making it bluescreen again. I added a drive at 200GB that I was going to copy all the old data to but as soon as i did it bluescreened again on the next boot. Removing the drive also didnt make it stop bluescreening, i was cautious and created a snapshot prior to adding the drive, and reverting to that fixed the bluescreen. This is really getting disgusting.

 

[imagoon]

Now... the question is, how do I duplicate the setup I had and have a DATA drive as the D drive around the 200GB range without making it bluescreen again. I added a drive at 200GB that I was going to copy all the old data to but as soon as i did it bluescreened again on the next boot. Removing the drive also didnt make it stop bluescreening, i was cautious and created a snapshot prior to adding the drive, and reverting to that fixed the bluescreen. This is really getting disgusting.

When you add a virtual disk, make sure you do not change the controller type on accident. Also make your life easy and pick up this tid bit:

For the "d drive" you wanted to copy, edit the vm while it is off, add disk space and save. IE if "D" is 100GB, change it to 150GB etc.

Boot the VM.

load up diskpart
use "list disk" and "list partition" to find the "ddrive"
example below..
then do
"select disk 1" (pick the correct disk)
"select part 1" (again)
"extend"
"exit"

It will add the blank space right to the existing disk.