[Nonapeptide]

Scenario:

A running Linux server has crashed. The drive is unaffected.

Goal:

To get the server back up and running as a VM using the hard drive.

Question:

Is it possible to take a drive, slave it to a running PC and use vCenter Converter to turn the physical drive and all of its volumes into a fully operational virtual machine? There seems to be a vast amount of confusion about this on the webs. Furthermore, when running vCenter Converter it appears to want to only convert partitions rather than consume an entire disk.

The only other option I can see is to use a third party imaging tool that VMware supports, make an image from the slaved drive and then consume the large image file in vCenter Converter. Why that would make a bit of difference is beyond me, but that's what evidence so far is suggesting.

[Dumber]

Does this give you any help?
http://www.petri.co.il/physical-to-v...ter-bootcd.htm

Or, maybe linux dd might come to the rescue? dd is of course used to create a copy of a disk

http://anothersysadmin.wordpress.com...a-vmware-host/

[Nonapeptide]

Originally Posted by Dumber

Does this give you any help?
http://www.petri.co.il/physical-to-v...ter-bootcd.htm

Or, maybe linux dd might come to the rescue? dd is of course used to create a copy of a disk

http://anothersysadmin.wordpress.com...a-vmware-host/

Sadly, the Petri article relies on the Enterprise Boot CD and one must be a current VirtualCenter Management Server customer or P2V Assistant customer.

Yeah, maybe one could spin up a VM, boot the VM into damn small linux, connect the dead server's drive and mount it before dd'ing it into the VM.

For some reason I thought this would be a simpler process. Is it so uncommon to want to revive a dead physical server as a virtual instance?

[Dumber]

You aren't using vCenter server?
There is also a stand alone converter which copies the entire running system or just selected disks
http://michael.requeny.com/2011/09/0...-5-0-released/

Else dd is I think the only option... don't forget to remove the old kernel drivers and install the VMware tools.

[Nonapeptide]

Originally Posted by Dumber

You aren't using vCenter server?
There is also a stand alone converter which copies the entire running system or just selected disks
http://michael.requeny.com/2011/09/0...-5-0-released/

Else dd is I think the only option... don't forget to remove the old kernel drivers and install the VMware tools.

No, this is just for informal disaster recovery for small clients. If they need a server up quickly, but don't have hardware yet, I might be able to virtualize it. At least, that was the theory anyway. =)

[scott28tt]

This product can perform a scheduled P2V to give you a "virtual backup" of a physical box, and can also restore back to bare metal.

http://www.novell.com/products/protect/

Scott.

[akitafan]

This is only a theory...

1 - Mount it as a slave drive.
2. Use imagex to create a wim of the drive.
3. Use the wim2vhd tool from WinPE for Windows 7 to convert the wim to a vhd file.
4. From there you can convert it to a VMK with winimage.

[Nonapeptide]

Originally Posted by scott28tt

This product can perform a scheduled P2V to give you a "virtual backup" of a physical box, and can also restore back to bare metal.

http://www.novell.com/products/protect/

Scott.

True, true. All well and good. However, I suspect it's not designed for offline P2V operations in the case of a server that can no longer boot for one reason or another.

Originally Posted by akitafan

This is only a theory...

1 - Mount it as a slave drive.
2. Use imagex to create a wim of the drive.
3. Use the wim2vhd tool from WinPE for Windows 7 to convert the wim to a vhd file.
4. From there you can convert it to a VMK with winimage.

Well, I wouldn't be against using Hyper-V to let the server live in, actually. I deal with a lot of Microsoft customers, so that wouldn't be so bad if I needed to restore a failed computer in this manner. Veddy interestink. I hadn't considered this mostly because I wasn't familiar with the existence of wim2vhd. =)

[scott28tt]

Originally Posted by Nonapeptide

True, true. All well and good. However, I suspect it's not designed for offline P2V operations in the case of a server that can no longer boot for one reason or another.

You're right, it's a X2X backup/restore tool and as such is designed as a preventative measure. It's a decent solution to provide ongoing system protection, hence why I suggested it as something for you or your customers to deploy to avoid repeats of the problem you face at the moment.

Scott.

[Nonapeptide]

Originally Posted by scott28tt

You're right, it's a X2X backup/restore tool and as such is designed as a preventative measure. It's a decent solution to provide ongoing system protection, hence why I suggested it as something for you or your customers to deploy to avoid repeats of the problem you face at the moment.

Scott.

Pre-emptive design? Preventive measures? What witchery is this you speak of?!