P2V of Server with GPT disk

[Bruce123]

I have just come to do a P2V of a server setup with a GPT partition table and discovered that the P2V tool on 2008 R2 VMM doesn't support conversion of GPT disks.

 

The MS article suggests two ways around this;

 

1) Use Disk2Vhd.exe tool to create the VHD files, create a new VM, link in the VHD files, then boot to the 2008 R2 DVD to repair it.

 

I tried this and not surpisingly it wouldn't boot straight off and it also wouldn't let me use the repair option when booting from the Virtual DVD (something about wrong version of Windows even though it was the correct version).

 

2) Convert partition table type from GPT to MBR (which wipes all data), then restore the "data" from a backup.

 

The problem with this is whether a BMR backup can be used to restore the server *after* changing the partition table type from GPT to MBR.

 

If the BMR doesn't work, I could be left with no working version of the server (either physical or virtual).

 

Has anyone encounted this problem before? Or any advice?

 

Regards,

 

Bruce.

[Bruce123]

If you are interested in how I got on with, then please see my follow-up thread in:

 

Thin Client and Virtual Machines

 

Thanks,

 

Bruce.