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UEFI continues to haunt me

6. July, 2010

We have an IBM x3650 M2, that runs a specific business application, using Windows Server 2008 R2 installed in EFI mode. Now, requirements have changed and we need to virtualize this.

Unfortunately, SCVMM 2008 R2′s P2V crashes when run on this machine. disk2vhd can produce a proper VHD from an EFI/UEFI install of Windows Server 2008 R2, but there’s not way of getting it to boot in Hyper-V (i tried a myriad of ways, including several Linux tools that can convert GPT disks to MBR-style disks, got the Windows Boot Manager installed, but it still wouldn’t boot).

So. What now? I’m out of reasonable ideas. I have opened a Microsoft support case regarding the SCVMM 2008 R2 P2V crash on an EFI machine, but i’m not sure i’ll get a quick out of this. If anyone has any ideas on how to get this fixed, i’d be thankful for any replies.

If i ever get a solution that does not include reinstalling everything from scratch, i’ll of course post it.

Update: Here’s the official statement:

There are no workarounds for moving a Windows system with an EFI partition to non-EFI architecture. EFI and Itanium are in lockstep. Classic x86 and x64 cannot boot EFI, and there and is no simple switch back to MBR boot.

Es tut mir Leid, das ich keine besseren Informationen für Sie habe aber das Feedback von unseren Development ist sehr eindeutig das keine Kombination von P2V / GPT bzw. EFI zur Zeit unterstützt wird. Mein Vorschlag wäre, unseren Service Request als “Dokumentations-Bug” für Sie kostenfrei zu schließen. Was halten Sie von meinen Vorschlag?

Bunch of idiots. Their agent shouldn’t crash in this scenario anyway and it should be documented that you can’t migrate machines installed in UEFI modes.

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3 Comments

  1. Jazzy Fizzle:

    Rebuilt the server again. New install of Windows, the Biz App and then just copy in the latest data. Ask help from the Biz App vendor to make sure you get all the data. This can be quicker than waiting for tech cases to be resolved.

    16. July, 2010, 16:51

  2. PTCruiser:

    The P2V crash.. Have you seen the various articles out there regarding HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Wdf01000\Group? I’ve seen that issue with trying to P2V Dell’s.

    16. July, 2010, 22:00

  3. PTCruiser:

    Oh, also, I don’t think it will help, but disk2vhd just got a new update (v1.6) earlier this week.

    16. July, 2010, 22:05

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