converting shadow protect file using vmware converter

change the OS in the setup to XP 32 bit temporarily and then change back to original OS after conversion.

I hope this helps !

What is the host OS type you are trying to convert? Windows 2008 R2?

Had this problem using Shadow Protect 4.0, unfortunately VMware Converter does not support the new versions of Shadow Protect images, the newest version of Shadow Protect supported is 3.2.
http://www.vmware.com/support/converter/doc/releasenotes_conv401.html

If you are trying to convert a Windows 2008 R2 or a Windows 7 machine take a look at http://sanbarrow.com/p2v2008r2.html

Good Luck

Spoke to a colleague who originally took the images of the 2003 server it seems a microsoft specific os patch needed to be loaded on the 2003 server machine prior to imaging, he cannot recall what the path was

ok so took a fresh image of a windows 7 machine using shadow protect 4.0.1.6921
it converted fine to a network share, installed vmware converter latest version 4.0.1-161434 on 2008 server pointed it to the spf file but same error the source virtual machine is not recognized.

What am I doing wrong?

I can see all the files in the image when I mount it using shadow protect so I know its imaging ok

I think DataBitz hit on the head about the newer versions of shadow protect are not yet supported in converter.

As a workaround use the Native Shadow Protect "bare metal" recovery facilities to recover to a newly created VM. Set the VM OS type as Vista (Windows 7 not supported in SA Converter 4.01) Then use VMware converter to do a V2V conversion of this newly created vm to its final place updating the drivers and installing tools as part of the process. Finally set the VM OS type back to Windows 7.

Good Luck

Sorry but what are the bare metal recovery facilities, are you referring to a cold boot scenario?

Yes, do whatever it is you would do with Shadow Protect to recover your image to a physical server, only recover it to a VM instead

unfortunatley this is the first time I am using this and finding it difficult to do what is suppose to be a straight forward backup and restore :  (
This is a complete test setup. I took another image of the same windows 7 machine and this time it does convert to a vsphere 4.0 server using the same versions as highlighted above, I do however get an error before it converts  "warning the target os cannot be reconfigured. It may not boot up properly" I'm not sue why this is as this would be an every day type scenario.... take backup of machine... restore to virtualised environment?

Can anyone tell me the exact process they use when using storage craft to take an image of a physical machine and convert it into a vsphere 4.0 setup. Thanks

Sorry I forgot to add when the above image gets virtualised then on start up I get error

Windows boot manager: windows failed to start.a recent hardware or software change might be the problem. insert windows disk .....
status: 0xc0000225

Now that you have it in a virtual machine (even though it won't start) you can lie to vmware converter. Set the guest os type to vista instead of windows 7, and run a V2V conversion into another VM. Vmware converter should be able to update the drivers and install VMware tools during the conversion.

After the 2nd pass wth converter you can change the OS type back to Windows 7 and it should boot up ok. Finally you can delete your vm that has the boot error.

Good Luck

ok so i have this correct, simply edit the settings for the current vm that doesn't boot, set it to vista, run the converter point it to the vm and convert it to another vm obviously of a different name on the same vsphere server?

How come I have to do this? thanks for all the help.

tried the above but when I start up the new converted machine I get the same error

you do that to let vmware converter install the proper drivers and stuff

does it give you a particular file that it is complaining about?

No file just the error, could it be anything to do with the 100mb boot partition that win 7 creates, surley this type of thing is done regularly with ease

thanks