Restore to MS Virtual machine - SCSI issue?

Hi all,
We are planning to clone a physical machine (running windows server 2003 standard) a to virtual one, and then put in place a replication solution. The drive configuration is RAID 1 on the source while the target where Microsoft Virtual Server is installed is on a RAID 5. A few issues I have are :

- to create a 2.4 Gb image takes up 8 minutes while restoring it takes 9 hrs from the DVD drive...
- the restored system doesn't boot; no error message, just the white stripe at the OS loader
- both machines are HP DL380 blades, so there shouldn't be any hardware differences, except maybe for RAID - if Virtual Server is on RAID 5, what will be the config of a virtual machine running on it??

I am very sure the software is capable of stepping over all these issues, I just need some guidance.

I appreciate your help!
Thanks,
Vasi

 

Hello Vasi,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

As far as I can understand, you created an image of a physical server saving this image to DVD, then booted virtual machine from Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue CD and restored the beforehand created image. The problem is that creation of this particular image archive took only 8 minutes while the restoration took about 9 hours. Is this correct?

If my assumption is not correct then pease describe in detail how you transferred Windows from physical machine to a virtual one.

Please also let us know what exact version and build number of Acronis True Image you use. You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

We recommend that you try preparing Windows for transferring using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (sysprep) as it is described in this FAQ article. Please note that even in case of using sysprep tool we do not guarantee the successful transferring of Windows to a computer with the hardware configuration that differs from that of the original machine.

If you want to be completely sure that the restored operating system will boot then we recommend that you use Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows or Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows in conjunction with Acronis Universal Restore for your purposes.

You can find more information on how to transfer Windows from physical machine to a virtual one and vice versa in section 3.7.2 of Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows User's Guide.

Please also note that as it is pointed out in section 3.7.3 of the above mentioned User's Guide "the system recovered by Acronis Universal Restore may not start if the partition structure in the image or the target disk partitioning does not coincide with that of the source disk". We therefore recommend that you "image and restore the entire system disk".

If the restored operating system still does not boot then please describe in details how you to transferred Windows from physical machine to a virtual one.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Hello Alexey!

Thank you very much for your time! Meanwhile I did manage to succesfully backup/restore a windows 2003 server succesfully!
The problem about there was actually the source drive which was set up as dynamic; therefore the Acronis Universal Restore option didn't show up. I did look over the documentation before, but somehow I had another notion about 'dynamic disk'. I reinstalled the OS on a test machine on a basic disk this time and the restore worked just fine! Actually I was very impressed - it's a great tool!

As far as I can understand, you created an image of a physical server saving this image to DVD, then booted virtual machine from Acronis True Image Bootable Rescue CD and restored the beforehand created image. The problem is that creation of this particular image archive took only 8 minutes while the restoration took about 9 hours. Is this correct?

Yes, your assumption is correct. Again, the restore needed 9 hours to complete and most probably this is caused by the read/write cahe ratio of the array controller on the virtual machine... It doesn't have a battery backed cache so the read/write ratio is 100%-0% with no way to change it. I will install a battery kit tomorrow, set the ratio to 50%-50% and run another test. Hopefully this will be the fix, or else I'll ask for help again... Anyway, I will keep you updated, maybe others will learn something out of this too.

Thank you very much and best regards,
Vasile Farcas

 

Hi!
I have just installed a battery backed cache and set it up to 50%-50% read-write ratio. Success! The restore time dropped from 9 hours to 22 minutes! Thanks a lot!