hyper-v to esx conversion

V2V cold clone process for SBS / exchange / sql / DC’s etc…..    (works in vSphere)

Steps to convert from hyper-v guest to vmware guest

  • Remove hyper-v integrated services while hyper-v guest is running. (if possible)
  • Note down NIC networking details first
  • Clean shutdown hyper-v guest
  • Use StarWind Converter (free) to convert VHD to “dynamically growing VMware” image and use “IDE” as type. Note “SCSI” does NOT work if you have not got the LSI / BUS drivers in the source image, just use the default options – dynamic vmware and IDE.
  • Create VMware guest shell (virtual machine equivalent to hyper-v specs but without the disks) – remove all hard drives, iscsi controller should also disappear.
  • Upload the VMDK to same data store as virtual machine and attach to the virtual guest in the right order. They should be detected as “IDE”
  • Start new vmware guest
  • If you could not remove integrated services (i.e. hot clone), then you MUST disable hyper-v services immediately.
  • Install vmware tools – reboot
  • Remove hidden NIC and other orphaned devices, and reconfigure network card as per original.
  • Windows may need to be re-activated – do this.

Note : converting a machine to use an IDE controller will limit its performance!