Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures
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Informational
http://ntfs.com/boot-sector-damaged.htm
Promising information
http://www.pcc-services.com/windows/guide-noboot.html
and another
https://bobcares.com/blog/windows-server-2003-boot-process-common-errors-solutions/
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I added a boot option in the boot.ini of one of my restores, and upon booting with Hirem's Boot CD. Now I see this.
https://i.imgur.com/6JklY4X.png
This leads me, but is no promise, that the hold up is before the boot.ini - damn I have to learn more about the boot loading process.
I'm pulling a disk 2 VHD image of my original system currently - some time tomorrow (I hope) I'm going to pull a comparison of the boot sector on the disk between the original and the VM.
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Something I just considered.
To ensure that the partitions where large enough, when I created the partitions for the VM, I made them 1 GB larger than the originals. This leaves slack space in the drive that will not be used by the restore.
I looking through the defaults when in expert mode, it looks like Clonezilla grows your disk to fit the space...more trial and error.
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Did you try the command
chkdsk c: /pas shown in the one article? -
@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Yes I did - I found that my 2003 server was (I think) missing one of the IDE drivers, so I put it in c:\windows\system32\drivers but that didn't help. I checked the registry, all looked well there.
The fact that it booted when using the boot sector from the Hirem CD implies to me that the boot sector in the VDI isn't properly pointing to the ntldr, so it's not booting. Somehow the boot to local media option of Hirem's CD gets past the hurtle and allows the system to boot.Did you load the drivers with the system still up, or just inject them in to the system image after it was powered down?
I remember once I had a VM that someone else P2Ved and VMware thought it had IDE drives. I couldn't expand the drive until I switched the drive type. The solution was to add another drive to the system of the same type as the new drive so that they system would load the new driver. Then I was able to change the drive type because the system was loading the drivers, they weren't just sitting on the drive waiting to be searched for.
That doesn't seem to be the root of your problem though.
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Fixing the boot.ini is probably the right thing to be working on.
On a normal system it looks like:
[boot loader]
timeout=05
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptInIf Hirens changes the drive order, have you tried creating an entry with disk(1) or other things in case the location of the partition has changed?
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In your boot.ini file are you using the /burnmemory switch? If so, check this out:
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016613 -
@Danp said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Did you try the command
chkdsk c: /pas shown in the one article?Yes, it did fix a few things but didn't fix boot.
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@Mike-Davis said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
In your boot.ini file are you using the /burnmemory switch? If so, check this out:
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016613Hiren is booting without that switch, so I'm guessing it's not needed.
Also my fresh install of 2003 doesn't have it and works great. -
@Mike-Davis said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Fixing the boot.ini is probably the right thing to be working on.
On a normal system it looks like:
[boot loader]
timeout=05
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptInIf Hirens changes the drive order, have you tried creating an entry with disk(1) or other things in case the location of the partition has changed?
I've thought about this, but there is only one disk in the VM on one of my restores.... And that boots just fine with hiren.
I really think I have a broken MBR area in the disk.
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Keep bringing ideas though. Thanks.
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Probably not what you'd like to hear, have you tried using Disk2vhd?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx -
@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
@Danp said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Did you try the command
chkdsk c: /pas shown in the one article?Yes, it did fix a few things but didn't fix boot.
Afterwards, did you try the other commands (fixboot, fixmbr) to see if the combination now works?
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@Mike-Davis said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
In your boot.ini file are you using the /burnmemory switch? If so, check this out:
https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016613Now that I'm at a desktop (not a phone), I looked at the link. Interesting, I've never heard of the /burnmemory switch before. As my pictures of my boot.ini file above show, I don't have this switch listed.
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@FATeknollogee said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Probably not what you'd like to hear, have you tried using Disk2vhd?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspxI kicked this off late in the day yesterday and it finished at 7 PM, and I just wanted to go home - now to figure out how to move this VHDX to my XS box.
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@Danp said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
@Danp said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Did you try the command
chkdsk c: /pas shown in the one article?Yes, it did fix a few things but didn't fix boot.
Afterwards, did you try the other commands (fixboot, fixmbr) to see if the combination now works?
yep, and nope, didn't work.
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@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2003 P2V adventures:
Something I just considered.
To ensure that the partitions where large enough, when I created the partitions for the VM, I made them 1 GB larger than the originals. This leaves slack space in the drive that will not be used by the restore.
I looking through the defaults when in expert mode, it looks like Clonezilla grows your disk to fit the space...more trial and error.
OK so I made a new VDI in XenServer, removed the old one, and restored my image using Clonezilla again. This time I made the new VDI as close in size to the original disk as possible, and disabled the -r command so it leaves the freespace unused.
I still have 165 MB of slack space.
https://i.imgur.com/jcvFvhn.png -
Open up the command prompt...
And run fdisk, and make sure your
drive is set as an active boot volume.If you can't run it from Windows, boot from the HBCD into a Linux command prompt and then fdisk /dev/sda ?
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on Server 2003, you could also try it with diskpart ...
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-make-a-partition-bootable-with-diskpart
Just ignore the bits about run as administrator.
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I've done all of these things.
