vCenter Standalone Converter P2V - Windows Boot Error 0xc0000225

[Josh Marchant]

I've used the converter tool to migrate a physical Windows Server 2016 OS to a VM within vSphere/ESXi. When attempting to boot I get the 0xc0000225 error stating "A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed". 

I have copied the disks with block level copy, maintiaining the original size and using thin provisioning. 

The VM boot mode is set to BIOS, which matches the original server. 

Can anyone advise what might be going wrong here?

[Andrea Consalvi]

That error usually means the VM can’t find the correct boot device and with Windows Server 2016 P2V, it often comes down to the boot configuration not being preserved correctly during the conversion.

Here are a few things I’d check:

1. Even if the original server used BIOS, double-check that the source actually used Legacy BIOS and not UEFI in compatibility mode. You might need to try switching the VM to EFI just to test.

2. After conversion, the “System Reserved” partition might not be marked as active. Boot from a Windows ISO, go into recovery, and use diskpart:

   
   
   
   
   list disk   
   select disk 0 
    
   list partition 
    
   select partition X  
   active
   
   
   

3. Still from the recovery environment, run:

   
   
   
   
   bootrec /fixmbr 
    
   bootrec /fixboot 
    
   bootrec /rebuildbcd 
   
   

4. Sometimes block-level copy with thin provisioning doesn’t play nice with boot partitions. If all else fails, try thick provision lazy zeroed just for testing.