P2V error - BlockLevelVolumeCloneMgr and Sysimgbase_DiskLib_Write

The other day we had to do a number of hot P2V's on some Citrix servers running Win2k3. I had succesfully completed a test migration a week before (with VMware Converter Standalone 5 installed locally on the source) on one of the same servers but when we re-initiated the P2V in the planned maintenance window, both servers failed at 90-something percent with an error stating the following:

SingleVolumeCloneTask:DoRun: Volume cloning failed with clone error BlockLevelVolumeCloneMgr::CloneVolume: Detected a write error during the cloning of volume \WindowsBitmapDriverVolumeId=[08-03-AE-BE-00-40-00-00-00-00-00-00]. Error: 37409 (type: 1, code: 2338)

This log entry is found by right clicking the job in Converter and choosing 'export logs'. Locate the file called vmware-converter-worker-X.log (where X is an incremental integer).

The above error message seems to indicate that there is a problem on the source disk. We tried running checkdisk which showed no errors and we defragmented all drives. Same error occurred.

Looking a bit more at the logs, I found the following entries which pointed towards a network error:


[NFC ERROR] NfcSendMessage: send failed: NFC_NETWORK_ERROR
[NFC ERROR] NfcFssrvr_IO: failed to send io message
Sysimgbase_DiskLib_Write failed with 'NBD_ERR_NETWORK_CONNECT' (error code:2338)

By searching a bit on the above entries, I was pointed towards a relevant KB article from VMware. As it turns out, this is not network related at all, it is a known error in the Converter Standalone (both v4 and v5) software. The KB simply states that VMware is aware of this issue... I've done a ton of P2V's but this error I've never seen before...

The good news is that there is a workaround:

The trick is to only transfer one drive at a time. This means that if the source has a C and a D drive you'll be P2V'ing this machine twice creating to seperate VMs - one only containing the C drive including the system partition and another VM (which I just called 'servername_Ddrive') containing only the D drive. When both P2V's are done the second one is removed from inventory. For the first VM, go to Edit Settings and attach the disk from the second VM, 'servername_Ddrive'. After that, you can boot the VM now containing both drives. Be aware that the newly attached disk will deafult to drive letter D. This means that if it had another drive letter before, you'll have to change it manually.

An important point to mention in this process is that when transferring the second VM only containing the D drive, the transfer will fail with an error around 98% stating something like "An error ocurred during reconfiguration...". This is ok - as long as the drive has been succesfully cloned, this is what matters (see below).

An alternative workaround that will most likely work as well is to do a cold clone.

Below is a screen dump of the releant entries in the log file.

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Disable Folder Options Menu

This setting allows you to hide the Folder Options function from the folder Tools menu. Allowing you to restrict access to numerous advanced folder features.
Navigate the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and create Dword value NoFolderOptions give the value 1.

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Enable or Disable task manager

If your computer is infected by virus, you may not run task manager to kill the process that run by the virus. Even if you removed virus by antivus, problems could persist.

Here is how to enable task manager

Firstly, from the Start button click 'run' and type Regedit.
Go to 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\System


In  DWORD value: DisableTaskMgr
Set the data value to 0 to enable Task Manager.
Set the data value to 0 to disable it.

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8-way VM on ESX 4.1 - Win2k8 R2 Standard edition

Today, I had to configure a VM with 8 vCPU's on an ESX 4.1 cluster. The guest OS was Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition. However, after configuring the VM with 8 vCPU's it still only registered 4 vCPU's in the guest OS.

The reason is that both Win2k3 and Win2k8 R2 standard edition only can be configured with four physical CPUs or sockets. By default vSphere 4.0 and 4.1 presents 1 vCPU as one socket.

To bypass this, there is a feature (experimental in 4.0 but supported in 4.1) allowing you to configure multiple cores per socket. See this KB article. This feature has been included in vSphere 5.0 in the GUI.

See this article for comparison of Windows 2003 editions.

See this link for comparison of Windows 2008 edition (look for 'Editions Guide' at the bottom of the page). Or download PDF here.

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Change the Default Location for Installing Programs

It may happen that your windows drive (usually C:) getting over and there is low disk space. Now you are installing program in another location by browsing every time you install the program.

If so, don't worry you can change the default location for installing program so that you don't have to browse every time. For this you have to change registry setting.

Click Start Run type regedit 

and press enter.

Expand the following key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

Look for the value named ProgramFilesDir. 

By default, 

the value will be C:\Program Files. Edit the value to any valid drive or folder; 

XP will use that new location as the default installation directory for new programs.

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Enable registry when it is disable by Virus

Most of the virus disable regisry and task manager so that they could not be deleted by manually. To enable registry you have change some registry setting but registry is too disabled. So you could not enable the task manager and could not end process of virus. So you have to enable registry to do that.

to enable registry do the following

1) type gpedit.msc in Run box.

2) Click on Administrative Templates

3) Click the System and locate the Prevent access to registry editing tools and double click on it.

4) Select the enabled on the optionbutton the click apply.

This will enable registry.

Note: This tutorial is based on that you have removed the virus by a good antivirus.After removing virus you have still above problems so here is the tutorial.

Your valuable comments are appreciated.

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Password Protection for Windows Password

With Following steps your windows password would not be cracked with any password cracking tools which are mostly used to crack windows passwords.

So let's start:

Step 1. Goto Start>Run.

Step 2. Type syskey.exe and then click Ok.

Step 3. A dialog box is open then Click on Update.

Step 4. Then enter your password.Then click OK.
Now its done......

Stay Safe

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