Need to rebuild Boot sector and Partition table of a once Multiboot Disk manually converted to VMDK

1

I had a problem with an HD that was not in a Healthy State I was able to make a backup in time with Acronis Image Home. The backup was partial, the original Disk had 4 partition (3 primary, bootable partitions and a logical only Data partition), the was a bootmanager to boot respectively Windows 7(1), Windows Vista(2), WindowsXP(3). I made a backup of only W7 partition and the DATA partition.

I didn't need the old Vista and WinxP drives, and that's why I made partial backup, not disk backup.

I want to virtualize the old machine. Using VMware vCenter Converter I wasn't able to convert the tib file, it gave error, probably because that was only a partial backup of first and last partition.

So I chose to follow a different path, I mounted the TIB file, which mounted the two partitions as separate disks, then using EASE Backup, I made a backup of the first(Window 7) partition and converted the image to VMDK.

Now I've created a Workstation 9 VMX(Using VMWARE Trial), which asked me to convert the VMDK to 9.0 version (I said NO). I will convert the data partition later.

Powering ON the Virtual Machine It booted to the boot manager, but obviously it doesn't work, whatever boot option I choose I get this error:

Status: 0xc000000e

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

If I remember well using VMware converter, the software takes care of the machine conversion including controller drivers used when the machine was installed on the real hardware.

Now I need to solve this problem, and I need advices to make all steps safe and working without any troubles.

For sure Boot sectors and partition table must be updated to reflect a disk with only a partition, and also need to solve the problem of all the drivers installed in the system that could give problem.

I've Windows 7 Install DVD and can try to use some utils to fix it but never made this so I need guidance.

UPDATE

Used W7 Install Disk and repaired Boot, removing all other partition, now the system starts to load but I get a BSOD...

Status: 0x0000007B

windows-7
virtualization
boot-partition
vmdk
bootsector
asked on Super User Jan 23, 2013 by Relok • edited Jan 23, 2013 by Relok

1 Answer

2

Solution here:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/2183682#2183682

Resuming: You need to make sure that Logic SAS Scsi controller is setup on your VM VMX file, and that the VMDK drive you have to boot from is setup to run on that controller.

Finally to solve the BSOD you need to modify the Guest OS Registry, you can do this with a live cd that can load Windows, a recovery cd or whatever can load Regedit or other Registry tools, the you select the Guest OS System Hive, and change HKLM/ControlSet001\services\LSI_SAS, then set the start type to REG_DWORD 0(Mine was 3 before changing it to 0), unload the Hive and all is done, you need to reboot and delete any driver that is not useful anymore(in the VM) and finally install VMWare Tools.

answered on Super User Jan 24, 2013 by Relok • edited Jan 28, 2013 by Relok

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