I have just come to do a P2V of a server setup with a GPT partition table and discovered that the P2V tool on 2008 R2 VMM doesn't support conversion of GPT disks.

MS article suggests two ways around this;

http://blogs.technet.com/b/scvmm/archive/2012/05/15/kb-p2v-fails-with-gpt-partitions-in-system-center-virtual-machine-manager.aspx

1) Use Disk2Vhd.exe tool to create the VHD files, create a new VM, link in the VHD files, then boot to the 2008 R2 DVD to repair it.

I tried this and unsurprisingly it wouldn't boot straight off and it also wouldn't let me use the repair option when booting from the Virtual DVD (something about wrong version of Windows even though it was the correct version).

2) Convert partition table type from GPT to MBR (which wipes all data), then restore the "data" from a backup.

Crucially, it doesn't mention boot/system partitions. In fact, if you just want to convert a drive containing data for the purposes of P2V, you might as well just create the new VHD on the VM and restore the data directly into the VM.

Note that the MS article on requirements on P2V neglects to mention that there are any issue with GPT partitions. Does it need updating?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb963740.aspx

Has anyone uncounted this issue with GPT disks before? Or have any advice?

Will this other option (I have come up with) work?

Perform a Bare Metal Recovery backup of the system/boot partition, change the disk type to GPT (thereby wiping the OS from the server), then restore the OS from the BMR backup? Will be BMR backup set the partition type back to GPT? If not, will the OS handle the change in partition type?

If it doesn't work, I could be left with no working version of the server (either physical or virtual).

Looking ahead, as newer servers are fitted with EFI motherboards and with 2008 R2 defaulting to GPT if it detects EFI, then this is surely going to be a increasing problem? Does 2012 default to GPT as well?

Are there plans for future versions of Hyper-V VMs to support GPT disks (would presumably need to emulate the EFI type BIOS)? If not, will there be an approved method to P2V servers with GPT partitioned disks?

Regards,

Bruce.

• Edited by Redbruce Monday, July 23, 2012 8:35 AM

There are no workarounds for moving a Windows system with an EFI partition to non-EFI architecture. EFI and Itanium are in lockstep. Classic x86 and x64 cannot boot EFI, and there and is no simple switch back to MBR boot.

This post is older than 30 days ..  Did this issue get resolved?  If so, please share with community how you resolved.  Otherwise, re-activate post if you still require assistance.  Forums are best effort support and so if you require assistance this more detailed I recommend opening a case with Microsoft Support.

Does Microsoft intend to fix this?  I have the same issue - I cannot PtoV a server for the same reasons - GPT volumes.  Seriously needs attention!  The way we plan to work around this is to create a bare-metal backup of the server and then restoring to a VM - fortunately our backup software supports this.  But I think that MS and VMware need to address the GPT issue.

I see that the 30 days have gone by and no-one has come up with a suitable answer.  This is not a good vibe.  We debated pulling the GPT volumes off of the server and doing the conversion using only the OS - which is on a MBR volume - then robo-copying back the data.  However, since this is a bit of a conundrum - we will attempt a bare-metal backup/restore.

Perhaps you can find a backup software that enables you to do this as well!

One aspect to consider is Hyper-v does not have support for EFI or UEFI.  So P2Ving a boot volume would not work.

I'm in the same boat - need to P2V a server which has has boot partition that is on a GPT partition. I'm about to try the Disk2Vhd approach, and eventually maybe cloning the OS drive from the GPT drive (using Ghost or other cloning utilities from the 'Ultimate Boot CD' download) and restoring the clone to a VHD to see if that would do the trick.

I successfully did a P2V of a Windows 8.1 PC based on UEFI and GPT partitions using disk2vhd.

However, what I realisedis that disk2vhd doesn't seemed to correctly copy the EFI System partition (ESP). The Generation 2 VM initially failed to boot with a UEFI error.

By booting from an installation DVD ISO image and using the Repair/Recovery command window, I was able to run diskpart and realise that the ESP partition wasn't being correctly recognised as a FAT32 EFI partition and was instead showing a raw and unreadable.

I corrected this by using diskpart to delete then recreate the EFI partiton using the 'create partition efi ..' command and format to fat32. I also recreated the MSR partition.

To recreate the Boot Manager in the ESP, I assigned the volume a letter using diskpart, then still in the Recovery Console, used bootrec and bcdboot commands to create the Boot Manager and BCD store. I first though created the EFI directory structure manually. .. \EFI\Microsoft\Boot.

Once the Boot Manager and BCD had been recreated, I ran BCDEDIT to check the BCD store inforamtion and that it was correctly targetting the Windows boot loader at c:\windows.

Finaly, I used diskpart to remove the drive letter I'd assigned earlier (eg. z:), as the boot didn't seem to work with the drive letter. Once I'd removed the drive letter, the BCD information seemed to update automatically to replace the device entry of Partition=Z: with the harddrive\vol reference.  

• Edited by SteveW43 Friday, January 31, 2014 10:01 AM