P2V Conversion of OEM Windows Systems

A physical to virtual conversion of a machine running an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Windows license will not be without hiccups.

Because the OEM validates the product key against the hardware itself, after the conversion process, the validation program will not find any OEM hardware thus rejecting all keys, even the standard ones. This is true for desktops, laptops and servers.

If you don't know what OEM is, it's similar to buying a Lenovo laptop with Windows preinstalled on it. In this case, all the hardware was provided by one manufacturer and the operating system (OS) will validate against the OEM hardware only.

The only solution is to obtain a Volume Licensing media of the same OS and a product key for it, then perform an OS repair (not using the recovery console).

Simply put, you boot up from the media, proceed as if you want to install, then select the partition that has been detected to have an existing OS and select Repair rather than a fresh installation.

All your settings and configurations will be preserved for your programs. You may need to reinstall certain hot fixes or a service pack.

Note: If setup cannot see the SCSI hard disk (in case of Windows XP), see this KB.

References:

• Catapult Systems IT Team Blog
• VMware forums
• Microsoft Knowledge Base

Converting Windows 2000 with VMware Converter

Converting a Windows 2000 machine has a bunch of caveats and problems when going from physical to virtual (p2v), using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone.

Requirements:

• VMware Standalone Converter version 4.0.1 (See Additional Info at the end)
• Update Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4 (KB891861)
• Windows 2000 Sysprep tools (Q257813)
• A Windows or Linux LiveCD. I recommend Knoppix (6.4+ - Linux) or Hiren (Windows).
  If you need to modify registry keys, use Hiren.

Procedure:

1. Install VMware Standalone Converter version 4.0.1
2. Extract sysprep tools and place them in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\sysprep\2k
   That should be on the same machine that has VMware Converter, not the Windows 2000 server.
   * On Windows 2008, the location is C:\Users\All Users\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\sysprep\2k (Thanks Anonymous for the tip!)
   or C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone\sysprep\2k (thanks Ben!)
3. Either apply the update rollup to the server or extract the update rollup and replace it with the file SCSIPORT.SYS in C:\WINNT\system32\drivers. Applying the update is recommended if the system is stable.
4. If you’re using a static IP on the Windows 2000 server, see this Knowledge Base article.
5. Run the Converter and deploy the agent. If you’re asked to restart, restart then start the VMware Converter service manually before running the Converter again, otherwise it’ll ask you to deploy the agent again.
6. In Step 3: View / Edit Options, Click on the Devices pane and change the disk controller to BusLogic SCSI.
7. Keep the number of processors as is, because if you change it, Windows 2000 won’t auto-detect new CPUs and you’ll need to update the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) on it manually. See KB234558 and KB249694 for more details.
8. In the Networks pane, deselect the option to connect at power on.
9. In the Advanced Options pane, do not select the options to power off the source and select the option to power on the target (VM). Do install VMware tools.
   Do NOT select "configure guest preferences for the virtual machine"

With that, you should be set to convert that machine. After the conversion is complete, the VM will start, install VMware tools, then restart. After it comes up you should apply the proper network settings then shutdown and enable the NIC to connect at power on.

Problems and Solutions:

• "disk read error" when starting the virtual machine.
  This happens because you have selected the Disk Controller as “Preserve Source” or “IDE” -- you must select “SCSI” -- after doing so, you’ll need to reconvert the machine.
• “KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED” Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) during boot up.
  This happens because Windows 2000 is using the old SCSI driver (SCSIPORT.SYS).
  You must boot into a LiveCD and replace the file in the location mentioned above.
  This happened to me even after I copied the SCSIPORT.SYS to the target machine before converting.
• After installing the Converter agent, you face problems & restart the Windows 2000 server, then when running converter again, it asks you to re-deploy the agent.
  This happens because when the Windows 2000 system comes up again, the Converter agent service isn’t started again.
  Open the services console (services.msc in run) and right-click VMware Converter then choose Start. After the service is started, run VMware Converter and it should connect.
• Unable to communicate to the agent.
  The network traffic is probably blocked by firewalls that are on the Converter machine, the Windows 2000 target machine or in between. Make sure the firewalls are disabled or port 9089 is allowed to pass through.
• "Inaccessible boot device" Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) during boot up.
  This happens due to some misconfiguration of drivers in the registry.
  To fix this, run the Converter program again and do a machine reconfiguration only (don't reconvert). Let it install VMware Tools, select "Reconfigure destination virtual machine" and do NOT select "Configure guest preferences for the virtual machine"
  If that does not solve your problem, read this thread.

Using The Linux LiveCD:

If you’re new to Linux, then here are some steps to help you replace files on virtual machines.

1. Boot the virtual machine from the LiveCD, by either attaching the ISO file from the data store, your machine, or burning the ISO to a CD (as an image!) and booting it from your CD drive.
2. At the boot prompt of Knoppix, just press enter to boot into the graphical interface.
3. Now we need to attach the VM’s disk to the Linux system: open a root shell / terminal.
4. Type: fdisk -l
   This will list all disks in your VM. Identify your operating system hard disk (by capacity if possible). If it’s not possible, then proceed with the next steps until you find your desired partition by looking at its contents.
   You will see things like: /dev/sda, /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, ...etc. sda is your first hard disk. sdb is your second hard disk. sda1 is the first partition in your first hard disk.
5. Type: mkdir /mnt/os
6. If your operating system (OS) is installed on the first hard disk, first partition, then type: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/os
7. You can now open a file manager in the graphical interface and go to this directory: /mnt/os -- you’ll see the contents of that partition.
   If that is not your desired partition, skip to step 10 then try mounting another partition.
   
   Note: Make sure you mount a partition & not a disk!
   mount /dev/sda1 is correct. mount /dev/sda is not.
8. To copy a file over the network from a Windows share on another machine, open a file manager and in the address tab type: smb://ip
   Example: smb://192.168.0.1, where the IP is of the machine you want to access over the network to copy a file from.
9. Right click & copy the file, then go to /mnt/os and paste it there.
10. You’re almost done. Now you just need to unmount the partition, so close the file manager window that opens /mnt/os and then in the root shell type: umount /mnt/os
11. Reboot the VM and unattach the CD / ISO.

Additional Info:

• Knoppix is like any *nix system: case-sensitive when it comes to file names. So you may have to delete to the original file manually then copy the new .SYS file due to the difference in letter case.
• The sysprep tools will be used by the VMware Converter to prepare a new copy of Windows. It’s required for the cloning process.
• Support for Windows 2000 has been dropped in VMware Converter version 4.3.
• VMware Converter Standalone is free. VMware requires that you register to be able to download, but their servers are slow (at least in my experience). I got my copy from 4shared, so just search for it & verify the md5 checksum.
  Windows: VMware-converter-4.0.1-161434.exe - 35f22a3b40b114d70cdbda2d5056c10f
  Linux: VMware-converter-4.0.1-161434.tar.gz - 90ce68a9f75af91aed9119d419a98b3c
• LiveCD Selection: You can choose anything that works for you as long as it has SCSI disk drivers, otherwise you won’t be able to see the VM’s disks (which is why getting Damn Small Linux was a waste of time...) and can read & write to the NTFS filesystem.

Extracting SMS Messages from Nokia NBU Backup File

I downloaded the latest Nokia PC Suite software for my ailing Nokia Communicator 9500, to backup everything, and to be able to read the SMS messages on the PC and delete the 1000+ SMS messages I have in my mobile...

After taking a full backup of everything, then another backup of SMS, Calendar and Contacts only, and while the phone was connected to the PC, I was able to view the messages, which made me think that the software downloaded them to the PC, so I proceeded to deleting some of them. After deleting about 200 or so, and having the mobile disconnected from the PC, I wasn't able to read them from the PC!!!
Apparently, the software was reading directly from the mobile and it had kept no copy, other than the backups that I took!

After 5 minutes of a panic attack followed by curses, I decided to restore the SMS messages from the backup to the phone. The software was kind enough to give me the choice to restore the SMS messages only, and not shove everything into my face, or the mobile's. The process took time, and the existing messages were not duplicated! But the process never finished; it got stuck at the end, so I canceled the operation but the messages were back.

I started looking for software to extract the messages from the .NBU backup file, which the Nokia software produced, since they're too retarded to present the option.
I was able to find only one piece of software that is both free and works! It's also able to extract the messages into one file (text, HTML, CSV, PDF, and more), or each message in a file. And to top it all, it can produce a table of contents of the messages!

The software's name is: ABC Amber NBU Converter. Here's a page with some description, but I don't know the software's original site, so I'm not sure if the linked page's file is safe from viruses. Make sure to scan it.

I'm glad Nokia didn't include the option to download the SMS messages to the PC, because it gave me yet another reason why I should dump Nokia altogether, and to find this beautiful piece of software.

Kudos to its creator(s).