P2V Conversion from Acronis True Image Home v.10.0 to Workstation 8.0

[Martin_ATS]

I am trying to use VMWare vCenter Converter Standalone v.5.0.0 build 470252 to convert an Acronis True Image Home v.10.0 (build 4,871) *.tib image file to VMWare Workstation 8.0 format.  On the "Source System" window of the Conversion wizard, when I select the *.tib file (from an attached external USB disk) and click "Next,", I get the message "The source parameters are invalid."

How do I troubleshoot this?

The vCenter Converter "home" page states that it can convert from *.tib files, and the help documentation states that it can convert from "Acronis True Image Echo 9.1, 9.5, and Acronis True Image Home 10 and 11 (.tib)."  So it seems like this is a text book case that should be "easy."  Alas!

I have used Acronis to verify that the *.tib on the USB disk is valid.

The source machine is Windows XP Professional SP3, 32-bit.  The destination machine is Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit. 

Thanks for your suggestions...

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

just to confirm, you are using Acronis version 10 and not 2010?

Version History:

Acronis True Image Home 10

Acronis True Image Home 11

Acronis True Image Home 2009 ==> Version 12

Acronis True Image Home 2010 ==> Verison 13

Acronis True Image Home 2011 ==> Version 14

Acronis True Image Home 2012 ==> Version 15

André

[Martin_ATS]

Yes, it is Acronis True Image Home v.10.0... not 2010 (v.13). See the "About" screenshot below.

Thanks,

Martin

[a_p_]

Interesting! I can't tell you why this happens, but as a workaround you could just create a new VM and restore the .tib image by booting off the Acronis CD. To access the image, you may temporarily share the folder with the image on the host.

Once restored, don't power on the VM but use the VMware Converter and run "Configure Machine" to inject the appropriate drivers into the VM.

André

Message was edited by: a.p.

[Martin_ATS]

OK, I'm attempting this right now...

I created the Virtual Machine and configured it similarly to the source physical machine with the "install OS later".

I booted the Virtual Machine with the Acronis Boot CD in the host CD drive.  I pressed F12 to boot from CD, and Acronis loaded from the CD.  So far, so good.

However, I cannot access any files, folders or external USB disks on the host machine.

When I attempt to connect the external USB disk to the virtual machine, I always get a "The device is currently in use" message from VMWare Workstation.  I've googled and searched for solutions to this but haven't found anything.  The USB disk is *not* actively being used by the host OS.  If I execute the "safely remove" option on the host (which works fine), the virtual machine still can't connect.

When I attempt to browse network shares from within Acronis on the virtual machine, it sees the network and the host machine and prompts me for the user ID and password, but it does not accept what I type.  (I also followed the steps in http://kb.acronis.com/content/1551, but to no avail.)

So I am stuck again.  The only files I have access to once I boot from the Acronis CD are those on the CD itself.  The *.tib file that I want to restore is about 75GB.

Any suggestions would be appreciated...

[a_p_]

There are several options you could try. To stay with the networking option, create a new local user with a password and add it to the local Administrators group, e.g.

net user Acronis Password1 /add

net localgroup Administrators Acronis /add

then create a new share for the folder with the image and ensure the share permissions are configured as needed.

If this does not work, temporarily add a second virtual disk to the VM. Before you start the VM, map the disk as a local disk to your host, format it and copy the image to it. Then disconnect it from the host and boot the VM.

André

[Martin_ATS]

André, thanks for the ongoing suggestions.  I was finally able to get network access to work by changing the network adapter to "bridged" so that more machines on the network appeared, and then connecting to a shared USB drive on another workstation (running Windows XP Pro).  I still could not connect to the Windows 7 host machine, but this got me past that issue.

It took about 24 hours to restore the Acronis .TIB backup (73GB) over the network from the shared USB!

After that,I got a "computer disk hardware configuration problem" error:

I found and followed the directions here:  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006556

That include entering the Windows XP recovery console  and performing fixmbr, fixboot, bootcfg /rebuild, and /fastdetect.

When all that was done, I tried booting and got an 0x7B BSOD:

Now, the odd thing is that I originally used the VMWare vCenter Converter Standalone 5.0.0 to do a P2V conversion, but the machine failed to start with the same 0x7B error above.  I spend about 10 hours at that time researching and reading VMWare support, community articles,etc. 

Almost all of the discussion and help tips have to do with BusLogic vs. LSILogic SCSI adapters, and they include "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" as part of the error message.  I have never seen "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" (and in fact, it looks like the OS starts to load fine until it stalls on "mup.sys"... that's when I get the 0x7B BSOD).  So I don't think those help articles apply in my case:  VMWare properly detects the disk as an IDE, and I don't see any options for BusLogic vs. LSILogic anywhere.

So restoring from an Acronis backup was an attempt to try a different route... I was hoping Acronis would succeed where the standalone Converter failed.  Unfortunately, it just got me right back to the exact same point (after another 10 hours of effort!).

I am rather frustrated that what I thought would be a straightforward P2V conversion has hit so many roadblocks and is still not working.  However, I would welcome suggestions to get past this stubborn 0x7B error.

Thanks,

Martin

[a_p_]

Hi Martin,

did you run the VMware Converter's "Configure Machine" option for the VM after restoring the Acronis image? This option is supposed to inject the appropriate drivers into the VM's guest OS. If this does not help either, please post (attach) the VM's latest vmware.log.

André