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Hi

I recently tried to move a WIndows 2003 Server machine from VMWare server to Virtual box. Just created a new machine in VB, added the mdk files and started up the machine, it sort of started and then locked up, tried turning on ioapic but didn't help. This was a test and well I ended up installing a new machine in VB.

I have a Windows 2000 server VM again in VMWare server, that I would like to move over to VB, and I don't want to rebuild, any one got any ideas on what I can do to make a smooth transition over to VB, I believe the machine doesn't have VM cpu support (older machine)

Have you read these?
Migration discussions

vbox4me2 wrote:Have you read these?
Migration discussions

I had, I read them again. Still having problems.

What I have done is

I used the vmware-vdisk manager to merge the multiple vmdk's into 1 file. I have not converted this to VDI as Vb now handles vmdk format. I confirmed that it can load up the information, by booting to the chntpw boot disk and looking at the files on there.

I have disabled agp440 in the registery with chntpw
I have done a repair to move the hal to apic no apicio

I installed the migrate ide

The one thing is that windows was installed under scsi drives and now its under ide drives, the boot.ini is multiboot(..... format, seem to remember that ide has a different format.

Any way the image gets to the stage with the dotted line at the bottom that slowly goes solid (still text) and then once the line makes it to the other side is get stuck.

Alex

EDIT:
when I try a safe boot, it list the files and it gets stuck on mup.sys, which seems like i might be stuck (from reading other forums threads)!!

EDIT:

Whilst putting the VMWare machine back, I realised I hadn't uninstalled the vmware client tools ? could that be causeing the problem ???

The VMWare tools are a problem, but that should only show after Windows is booted properly. Having it stop at mup.sys is, as you found out from other threads, a real show stopper. Doing a quick google search, I came on this page that might get you a working machine.
http://www.aitechsolutions.net/mupdotsysXPhang.html
And the Google search for if it doesn't work: http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... 8&oe=utf-8

Sasquatch wrote:The VMWare tools are a problem, but that should only show after Windows is booted properly. Having it stop at mup.sys is, as you found out from other threads, a real show stopper. Doing a quick google search, I came on this page that might get you a working machine.
http://www.aitechsolutions.net/mupdotsysXPhang.html
And the Google search for if it doesn't work: http://www.google.com/search?client=ope ... 8&oe=utf-8

Interesting read, I did notice in the log file that VB had flagged out of range on the drive via int13, wonder if that is the problem!

I have been thinking to create a vdi image, and then just mount the orig vmk and copy the files over (and dd over the mbr or maybe do a recovery)

That would still give the same boot error. Changing the storage format from VMDK to VDI won't help with boot issues.

Sasquatch wrote:That would still give the same boot error. Changing the storage format from VMDK to VDI won't help with boot issues.

I guess then my last resort is to start turning things off until it boots. real pain

I read some where a "good way of migrating machines" is to backup the original via windows backup, install a new machine in VB and then restore the old machine with windows backup, that might be worth a go (the C: drive is only 8G so doesn't take that long to move around.

Just to complete the thread, I have upgraded the machine to 2003 - and then used the original vmdk not conversion and started it up in VB - just worked. Well I guess it was time to upgrade