P2V – Step by Step Removing Physical Hardware

It’s been a while since I had to P2V a Windows server but recently I found myself on a project doing P2Vs of business critical servers, again.

FYI: The new version of VMware VM Converter works great for converting a physical Windows and Lunux server into a virtual server.

Once the conversion is completed, the new VM is online, VMtools are installed and video acceleration is set, here’s a couple more steps I learned about at a VMUG meeting that I recommend doing to finish the P2V job.

First – Remove Old Physical Hardware from the New Windows VM (picture shows “grayed” disk drives)

Step 1 -  Log into the VM

Step 2 -  Open a command prompt
-    Start > Run
-    CMD
-    Enter

Step 3 – At the prompt type: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
-    Enter
-    Type: start devmgmt.msc
-    Enter

Step 4 – Wait for the Device Manager to open, then click on View > Show Hidden Devices
- Expand each category and search for “grayed” hardware
- Right click and click uninstall when “grayed” hardware is located
- Don’t worry about the System Devices category
- When all the hardware devices are gone, close the Device Manager and reboot

Second – Uninstall Old Hardware Specific Software

Step 1 – Log into the VM
Step 2- Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs
Step 3 – Carefully find and uninstall programs from IBM/Dell/HP/other that are used for drive arrays, networking, ILO or any other similar application that is specific to the physical hardware.
Note: These items are not required now that the server hardware has been virtualized.
Done – When all the applications have been uninstalled, close the Control Panel and reboot
Q: Why do this?
A: The reason I do these steps is because over the years I’ve had to troubleshoot VMs that I found were P2V’d by someone else and not cleaned up. This normally causes poor performance and issues with ghost hardware that conflict with the virtual hardware devices, more specific – network adapters.
There – now all you need to do is make sure all your best practices are applied to the VM and it’s ready for production.