HOWTO: Convert Windows Server 2008 From Bare Metal GPT To VMware MBR

HOWTO: Convert Windows Server 2008 From Bare Metal GPT To VMware MBR

HOWTO: Convert Windows Server 2008 From Bare Metal GPT To VMware MBR ->>->>->> https://urllio.com/2t2ktG

One place where the EFI setting for VMs is very useful is in allowing manual P2V conversions of bare metal systems which were installed using EFI, since EFI is not supported by VMware Converter (or wasn't, last I checked). See How to perform a P2V conversion of a Windows Server 2008 R2 EFI system? for background on this.

Does Microsoft intend to fix this? I have the same issue - I cannot PtoV a server for the same reasons - GPT volumes. Seriously needs attention! The way we plan to work around this is to create a bare-metal backup of the server and then restoring to a VM - fortunately our backup software supports this. But I think that MS and VMware need to address the GPT issue.

I see that the 30 days have gone by and no-one has come up with a suitable answer. This is not a good vibe. We debated pulling the GPT volumes off of the server and doing the conversion using only the OS - which is on a MBR volume - then robo-copying back the data. However, since this is a bit of a conundrum - we will attempt a bare-metal backup/restore.

It is not uncommon to convert disk partition style without booting Windows operating system. When installing Windows on bare metal, you might need to convert MBR to GPT to fit your PC UEFI boot mode. When a computer fails to boot, creating a bootable device to convert partition style saves conversion time and reduce affecting factors.

Either way you need to take some sort of hdd backup in case all fails, you are going to use Vmware Converter 5.0 for this, it maybe possible to a bare metal restore from a standard backup using your own backup tool.

I would follow this video, with respect of backing up Windows 2008 Server with its own backup tool, you may need to stop exchange on the server when trying this out, you should end up with a VHD file on USB HDD Drive that could be attached to your ESX 5.1 server, watch the end part of the video for a restore is done from the VHD file with the Windows 2008 ISO or boot DVD

Creating a new virtual machine as well as installing and configuring all necessary applications can take a long time. Fortunately, when you need to migrate your workloads from a physical server to a VMware virtual machine (VM), you are not required to create and configure a new VM from scratch because you can use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine. VMware vCenter Converter Standalone can also convert Hyper-V VMs to VMware VMs as well as converting VMware VMs from one format to another.

Cold migration is the migration of a source machine that is in the powered-off state. Cold migration is recommended for converting MS Exchange servers, database servers such as Oracle or MS SQL, and other servers on which data is dynamically changed when a server is powered on (to preserve the data consistency). If the data on disks remains static, you can perform hot migration. Cold migration of physical servers can be performed if you boot from the live CD and run the process of converting a physical machine including disks drives and the operating system.

IDrive BMR is an onsite bare-metal disaster recovery solution with cloud replication features. You can perform full, incremental, and manual backup of Windows computers (servers, desktops, laptops) and VMware virtual machines to your local BMR device. The backups stored on your IDrive BMR device can be transferred to your cloud account via manual and scheduled cloud backup for a secondary backup. Bare-metal recovery is available via WinRE based restore, file-level recovery, and instant local and cloud virtualization.

3. Click Repair your computer to choose Windows Complete PC Restore from System Recovery Options. Optionally, you can select Command Prompt to restore WBadmin bare metal backup.

4. Select the bare metal backup you want to restore and click Next. If the image is saved on a removable devices, you should connect it at first. You can also select it from a network location.

If you are finding an easier solution that can greatly minimize the possibility of failure to bare metal restore in Windows 10/11, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP or Windows Server 2003, 2008(R2), 2012(R2), 2016, 2019, 2022, a powerful backup & restore tool like AOMEI Backupper could be a better choice.

It can not only create system image for disaster recovery, but