Copying Physical Server to Hyper-V

[zag]

Is there a way to copy a physical server to Hyper-V?

[tmcd35]

A quick Google for 'Hyper-V P2V' should through up a freebie tool by MS themselves that does just that.

[sparkeh]

I use disk2vhd from sysinternals. Cracking bit of software which can convert while the machine is online which is a handy feature.

[Guest TheLibrarian]

We use VMware, and their converter - in most cases very sucessfully.

 

There have been one or two that were converted that have been flaky and much better when rebuilt from scratch.

 

This may not be relevant to Hyper-V but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

[leco]

I use disk2vhd from sysinternals. Cracking bit of software which can convert while the machine is online which is a handy feature.

I use this as well, it can also save the resulting file to itself - which is handy if there's no other drive available.

[marekbrad]

bump on disk2vhd.. great tool worked floorlessly for me.. converted phyiscal DC, Printserver and Policy Central Server in real time no issues at all.

[zag]

Do you always check the "Fix up HAL for virtual pc" option?

 

What does it do?

[tmcd35]

This replaces the HAL with one that is compatible with Hyper-V so the server shoud not BSOD on boot, which it may do other whys. So yes, if you are P2V'ing to Hyper-V you should pretty much always select this.

[leco]

I haven't used the "Fix up HAL" option as I thought it was to do with MS Virtual PC rather than Hyper-V. Have yet to see a BSOD but only time will tell;/

[tmcd35]

Interesting, I tried it both with and without on Virtual Server 05R2 and always get BSOD so have to repair install. I thought it was a Hyper-V option. Oh hum.

[leco]

Not saying it isn't Hyper-V just that I haven't used it. Maybe I'll have a play sometime and tick the box and test it.

[willv28]

Funny, I never have gotten the blue screen from P2V conversion. But I have after repairing or upgrading a VM.

 

We are using the full System Center Virtual Machine Manager. It was very inexpensive and gives us a nice all in one console we can use to control these types of tasks as well as manage different Hyper-V hosts. As well as create P2V conversions.