Tips for migrating a physical computer to a virtual machine (part 4)

Tips for migrating a physical computer to a virtual machine (part 4)

"Well we are at the final post in my series on migrating a physical computer to a virtual machine. If all other steps have failed the last thing to check is the HAL that is being used by the operating system. The HAL is the 'Hardware Abstraction Layer' and is responsible for some of the lowest level access in the system. You can find out about all the various HALs here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309283.

Having the wrong HAL loaded can result in:

Blue screens during boot
Unrecoverable processor errors
Boot simply 'stalling' and never finishing

In order to update the HAL you should boot into the recovery console (as described here: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2004/12/10.aspx). You should then change directory to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory and run "expand D:\I386\HALACPI.DL_" followed by "copy HALACPI.DLL HAL.DLL".

Note - this method is not officially supported by Microsoft - but I have found it to be very handy :-)

Cheers,
Ben"

I've run into this (boot simply 'stalling' and never finishing) when building a VPC from a ghost image. Up till now, the only way I was ever able to get VPC to work was to do a complete reinstall of the OS (Win2K). Which kind of defeats the purpose...

I'm going to build a new VPC with the ghost image now and try the above tip... [fingers crossed].

Update #1 12/16/2004 @ 4:28PM PST:
OH YEAH! I have a VPC from a ghost image that now boots and seems to be working great! Ben totally rocks!

Of course, being technology, it was a bumpy road...

• First I had to create a DOS boot disk image with the DOS Virtual Folder TSR.


• Then get the right version of Ghost (the image was created with a new version than my group had).


• Then of course restore the image to a VPC HD


• Then get my hands on a Win2K AS ISO (I love my MSDN subscription and its downloads!)


• Now when trying to boot to get into the Recovery Console, I realized I didn't have the local admin password. And when I asked for it, I would have needed an Act of Congress to get it... Work around time.


• Downloading the EBCD - Emergency Boot CD, I used the "Linux: NT password recovery" utility to blank out the local admin password. This works great...


• Now being able to log into the Recovery Console as the local admin, I followed Ben's tip (above).


• Reboot.


• Doesn't work. Same "stalling" during boot.


• Rereading Ben's tip, I go to the MS HAL page that he references. I decide to try the basic/plain jane HAL.


• Instead of "expand D:\I386\HALACPI.DL_" I do "expand D:\I386\HAL.DL_"


• Reboot


• I'm IN!!!

[Greg does the Happy Dance]

Now once all the "found new hardware" stuff is done, I'll have a good solid VPC of my production system. That will help testing a good bit. Also now that I've done it once, it will be easy to do again in the future as needed...