I tried a P2V migration last week and here might be a better spot to
document the results. I have an aging physical host running Windows
2003 Server and I want to P2V that host in to a libvirt VM. The
physical host uses a Compaq Smart Array 532 Controller with a Compaq
Logical Volume SCSI disk device. The logical volume is a RAID 5 set.
I first tried using the new virt-p2v approach, but haven't been
successful. So I tried doing it the old-fashioned way. On a RHEL 6.1
host, I built a libvirt Windows 2003 VM from scratch using a virtio
system drive. Then, on the physical host, I ran ntbackup and backed up
all the system drive files to a network share viewable from my newly
provisioned VM. I also backed up the system state. From the 2003 VM, I
restored the system drive files and system state and rebooted.
When rebooting, the VM flashes a couple of POST SeaBIOS lines, then the
console window goes black. No BSOD, just black. Virt-manager shows the
VM is still powered on, but the console window just sits there, black,
until I force the VM to power off. I tried pressing F8 to see if I
could get to a Windows boot menu, but this never worked. I have a hunch
something is going on with the new system virtual drive and the driver
for the old system drive.
I can boot the VM from a virtual CD and launch the Windows recovery
console, and from there I can see the Windows installation. The login
uses the new password, so I think the ntbackup - restores did their
jobs. I tried a fixboot and fixmbr, but neither of these did any good.
I tried another ntbackup - restore, this time using an IDE system drive
in my VM (the restore took 50 percent more time than with virtio), but
this also made no difference.
I ended up re-enabling the NIC on the physical host again and now I'm
trying to come up with a plan C. Are there any other ideas I'm not
thinking of?
Thanks
- Greg Scott