sglee
asked on
Starting imported SBS2011 as VM in HyperV
Hi,I have SBS2011 physical server with three drive letters (C,E & F) and I ran Disk2VHD program to create VHDX disks and moved them over to a new HyperV server.
(1) C Drive (total 200GB, about 110GB Used) has SBS2011 OS
(2) E Drive (about 1.7TB, 830GB Used) has shared user files and folders.
(3) F Drive (about 300GB, a few GB used) has some misc files/folders.
When I ran Disk2VHD, it created two VHDX files. MSS1-0.VHDX (109GB), MSS1-1.VHDX (834GB)
I copied both files into C:\Users\Public\Documents\
I started the MSS1VM and I logged in as domain admin and I see desktop icons just like they were on the pyhsical SBS2011 server. My question is that when/where do I get to attach MSS1-1.VHDX.file to the VM because this contains all the files and folders?
Thanks.
Lee W, MVP
Increase the virtual processors. Give it 2.
Disk2VHD has never been an officially supported method to create a VM. It is meant for data, not an OS. And while some.people have had limited success with it, it is unreliable and, especially with SBS, prone to complete failure. There is no good recovery path.
Microsoft has a VM converter you can try. The success rate is much higher. But for SBS in particular, because of all the networking funkiness it does, I *recommend* actually doing a traditional migration. Install the OS. Replicate AD. Move mailboxes. Etc. That has a 100% success rate when done properly.
Microsoft has a VM converter you can try. The success rate is much higher. But for SBS in particular, because of all the networking funkiness it does, I *recommend* actually doing a traditional migration. Install the OS. Replicate AD. Move mailboxes. Etc. That has a 100% success rate when done properly.
ASKER
@Lee & Cliff
Thanks for your comments, but my question was about attaching 2nd VHDX to this VM.
Thanks for your comments, but my question was about attaching 2nd VHDX to this VM.
Shut down the VM.
Settings --> New HDD --> Search for the VHDX --> Attach to the IDE bus.
Boot to CMD and set drives letters, or boot the OS and set the drive letters then reboot.
Settings --> New HDD --> Search for the VHDX --> Attach to the IDE bus.
Boot to CMD and set drives letters, or boot the OS and set the drive letters then reboot.
ASKER
What do you mean by boot to CMD?
Boot an ISO of SBS 2011 Standard or 2008 R2, select Repair, and choose CMD. Use DiskPart to configure the drive letters.
ASKER
Can I do the same using DISK Management?
Yes, just reboot after changing the drive letters.
ASKER
What do I do in Disk Management?
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ASKER
@Lee
Thanks for the info and I will try those in the morning.
Yes I edited my question. As I was posting my original question, I saw blank desktop screen. Looking back, it turned out that the VM needed a lot more time to display desktop icons (maybe because it was very first time). But eventually it displayed desktop icons, so I had to edit my original question.
The remaining task was attaching 2nd VHDX file to the newly created VM.
I will post result in the morning.
Thanks for the info and I will try those in the morning.
Yes I edited my question. As I was posting my original question, I saw blank desktop screen. Looking back, it turned out that the VM needed a lot more time to display desktop icons (maybe because it was very first time). But eventually it displayed desktop icons, so I had to edit my original question.
The remaining task was attaching 2nd VHDX file to the newly created VM.
I will post result in the morning.
ASKER
@Lee
(1) Under the SCSI Controller and I pointed to C:\Users\Public\Documents\
(2) Started VM
(3) All the drive letters were automatically showed up in "My Computer" except there are not exactly the same order as they were in production server. The drive letter order in production SBS2011 is C (OS), D (Files & Folders) and E(Misc files & folders), F (CD-ROM). (** I was incorrect in my original posting). When I attached MSS1-1.VHDX, I saw additional drive letters - E and F - because D was assigned to CD-ROM.
Could I have attached MSS1-1.VHDX in the SCSI Controller section in EDIT settings immediately after creating this VM from the scratch, before starting up the VM for the first time? It appears that it is 2 step process and I wonder if attaching 2nd VHDX is better before firing up the newly created VM...
(1) Under the SCSI Controller and I pointed to C:\Users\Public\Documents\
(2) Started VM
(3) All the drive letters were automatically showed up in "My Computer" except there are not exactly the same order as they were in production server. The drive letter order in production SBS2011 is C (OS), D (Files & Folders) and E(Misc files & folders), F (CD-ROM). (** I was incorrect in my original posting). When I attached MSS1-1.VHDX, I saw additional drive letters - E and F - because D was assigned to CD-ROM.
Could I have attached MSS1-1.VHDX in the SCSI Controller section in EDIT settings immediately after creating this VM from the scratch, before starting up the VM for the first time? It appears that it is 2 step process and I wonder if attaching 2nd VHDX is better before firing up the newly created VM...
When we restore SBS 2011 Standard to a VM from either another Hyper-V host's setup or from a physical server's setup (P2V) using ShadowProtect for both methods SBS 2011 Standard can take _a long time_ for the first boot to happen. Then, after asking to reboot it can take a long time yet again. There are a lot of services trying to start on that OS. Exchange is one of the culprits in stalling things as the timeouts are quite long for each Exchange component.
Restoring SBS 2011 Standard requires some patience and quite a few steps to get things settled down such as networking, DHCP, DNS, and especially Exchange.
Restoring SBS 2011 Standard requires some patience and quite a few steps to get things settled down such as networking, DHCP, DNS, and especially Exchange.
ASKER
in Hyper-V server, I deleted the virtual machine "MSS1VM".
Then I created a virtual machine "MSS1VM" again and selected existing hard drive "MSS1-0.VHDX". Before starting the VM, per Lee's comment "you add the VHD MSS1-1.VHDX as a drive attached to the SCSI controller. ", I added MSS1-1.VHDX under SCSI controller before powering on the VM. When I powered the VM and logged in, I saw all the drive letters as they were in production SBS2011.
The only change is the driver letter assigned to partition and DVD-ROM.
In production SBS2011, it had C, D and E drives that have data and F drive was DVD-ROM.
In virtual machine, I see C D, F as data drives and E drive was DVD-ROM.
Is there a way to preserve these drive letters as I create a new VM?
Then I created a virtual machine "MSS1VM" again and selected existing hard drive "MSS1-0.VHDX". Before starting the VM, per Lee's comment "you add the VHD MSS1-1.VHDX as a drive attached to the SCSI controller. ", I added MSS1-1.VHDX under SCSI controller before powering on the VM. When I powered the VM and logged in, I saw all the drive letters as they were in production SBS2011.
The only change is the driver letter assigned to partition and DVD-ROM.
In production SBS2011, it had C, D and E drives that have data and F drive was DVD-ROM.
In virtual machine, I see C D, F as data drives and E drive was DVD-ROM.
Is there a way to preserve these drive letters as I create a new VM?