vCenter

 View Only
  • 1.  Windows XP from physical to virtual, disk controller changes

    Posted Oct 07, 2014 08:29 PM

    Hi, I am new to VMware products and to migrating OS from physical machine to virtual one which is the next job now here.

    Means a Windows XP SP3 which currently runs on real PC is going to run as virtual machine.

    Using the Converter Standalone for that is one possible solution path.

    Current physical platform is Pentium 4 with SiS north brigde 655TX and south bridge 964,

    the os is installed on single SATA hdd. Windows XP installation CD does not include

    driver for this SATA controller.

    Generally I know if one tries to move the Windows XP installation from one PC to other where both PCs

    have different disk controllers (different in kind of interface, vendor, model) there are the best chance the boot

    on new PC will fail because Windows XP is unable to load drivers needed for disk controller found on new PC.

    I can imagine same problems occur while transferring Win XP from physical to virtual machine using VMware Converter Standalone.

    How well does CS manage this problem?

    Does the hardware configuration stage of of virtual machine creation address this question?

    I can see in the CS documentation topic of disk controller selection where the type of

    disk controller can be set. However merely the controller interface type SCSI, IDE, etc is addressed there.

    The configuration stage would mean the Converter carries out internal changes in the destination OS installation.

    Is that right?



  • 2.  RE: Windows XP from physical to virtual, disk controller changes

    Posted Oct 07, 2014 09:00 PM

    Yes, that's correct. The Converter will inject the required drivers and settings after migrating the data.

    André



  • 3.  RE: Windows XP from physical to virtual, disk controller changes

    Posted Oct 10, 2014 08:38 PM

    Thank's for your answer.

    So, our current plan is to use vCenter Converter Standanlone along with Fusion 7 in order to achieve the goal as described below.

    Can you confirm these two software solutions fulfill all these requirements and will help to achieve the goal?

    Windows XP SP3 installed on and currently running on physical PC is to be migrated to

    Fusion 7 VM. Installed on a SATA HDD. The HDD connects currently to PC via SiS180 motherboard on-board

    SATA/RAID controller. It is unclear if currently the driver runs in AHCI mode or in legacy. In any case

    the SIS SATA/RAID drivers are installed and in use for this controller.

    The generated VM must be an exact image of current state (OS + installed SW + all personalizations of OS and SW,

    user data on the system partition). That means, the from-scratch installation of Windows XP installation and the software

    on new created Fusion VM is not acceptable because this way exact replica is not possible.

    Only one acceptable exception: all hw-dependent bits does not need to be exact on source and the destination machine.

    The host of resulting VM will be os x 10.9, later 10.10 on a Mac 2013.

    -) Migration without new installation, neither OS nor all the soft on it

    -) Migration must not include the again-and-again hacking

    -) All steps of the migration to be carried out manually all well described, all instruction are available

    -) All information and needed to complete the mission successfully are available