Converting a SVR12R2 from ESXI to Hyper-V

[Molesy]

Hi guys, 

 

we are trying to convert 3 windows ESXI instances to Hyper-V as out customer would like to move to hyper-v.  We decided to use the starwind V2V converter after some success with in office testing. When we came to doing the project live we were able to convert 2 out of the 3 instances. the 2 we converted were set up in Legacy mode. The last one which is the Domain controller is a UEFI Windows Server 2012R2 instance. it converts successfully but when we try to launch the Gen-2 instance in hyper-v, we see the spinning dots and the get an error of "windows has encountered an error and will reboot" I believe it also says inaccessible boot device but the screen only appears for millisecond before rebooting. After a second attempt with the same results it loads into recovery mode. unfortunately the customer does not know the root / recovery AD password as we need that to open CMD to try running some commands. 

 

We have left everything as in on the ESXI and left it there.

 

We have also booted into a ISO image and tried all the bootrec / bcdedit commands suggested online but none of them work. 

We tried doing a Acronis 12.5 Backup of the server and then restore it as a VM this also failed with the same simptoms

we also installed a shell server 2012R2 in UEFI mode and the tried to restore the C drive from the server to the C drive of the shell 2012r2 but the results were still the same. 

 

We have created a ESXI VMDK as well to test in office to see if we can boot that on our test environment and try to perform some more in house testing. 

 

Does anyone have any suggestions we could try ? not sure why the boot device is inaccessible after the conversion. all the other servers had no issues. 

 

Thanks !

[Molesy]

The other thing we noticed is that the server in ESXI is set to selective start but everything is ticked. no sure if this is causing an issue.

[Net Runner]

I have a great experience with Starwinds V2V Converter especially for P2V or V2V older Windows-based servers to ESXi or Hyper-V. Since you have managed to successfully convert 2 of 3 virtual machines and Acronis Backup didn't help either I think it's most probably Windows 2012 R2 boot sequence issue rather than conversion problem.

If this is only a domain controller you are trying to move I would recommend you spinning a new properly configured DC virtual machine on top of Hyper-V instead of conversion and just migrate the old DC to a new one. This approach is proven to be way better compared to moving since allows you to get a new, clean and shiny domain controller without messing things up. Just be sure to migrate all the FSMO roles and properly demote the old DC and you will be good.

[Molesy]

22 hours ago, Net Runner said:

I have a great experience with Starwinds V2V Converter especially for P2V or V2V older Windows-based servers to ESXi or Hyper-V. Since you have managed to successfully convert 2 of 3 virtual machines and Acronis Backup didn't help either I think it's most probably Windows 2012 R2 boot sequence issue rather than conversion problem.

If this is only a domain controller you are trying to move I would recommend you spinning a new properly configured DC virtual machine on top of Hyper-V instead of conversion and just migrate the old DC to a new one. This approach is proven to be way better compared to moving since allows you to get a new, clean and shiny domain controller without messing things up. Just be sure to migrate all the FSMO roles and properly demote the old DC and you will be good.

I would agree but unfortunately this is Domain controler + SQL for an app they are using, DHCP + Azure connect for Office 365 emails. they also have about 20 PC on the network. at this time we would like to avoid having to redo the domain and move everything around as we cant really give that much time and would mean a longer down time for the customer which they cant afford at this time. a direct conversion would be best.

 

Just not sure why the this 1 virtual is having a boot issue while the other did not. The only main thing i can see is that this one is a EFi instead of Legacy. 

[Molesy]

On 2/24/2020 at 11:33 PM, Net Runner said:

I have a great experience with Starwinds V2V Converter especially for P2V or V2V older Windows-based servers to ESXi or Hyper-V. Since you have managed to successfully convert 2 of 3 virtual machines and Acronis Backup didn't help either I think it's most probably Windows 2012 R2 boot sequence issue rather than conversion problem.

If this is only a domain controller you are trying to move I would recommend you spinning a new properly configured DC virtual machine on top of Hyper-V instead of conversion and just migrate the old DC to a new one. This approach is proven to be way better compared to moving since allows you to get a new, clean and shiny domain controller without messing things up. Just be sure to migrate all the FSMO roles and properly demote the old DC and you will be good.

@Net Runner  now the real kicker. we took a VMDK image via starwind v2v converter created a ESXI instance in our office with the same version they have just no raid as its test only. loaded the VMDK and it turned on straight away.... 

[Molesy]

@Net Runner any ideas what else could be causing the boot to fail after the conversion ?