I’m working on converting a physical 2008 R2 server to a virtual machine for ESX 4.1.  I installed vCenter Converter Standalone 4.3 on this machine and ran through the wizard.  When I got to the disk configuration, nothing was listed.

Some research pointed me to this VMware KB article indicating to check the logs which are located in C:ProgramDataVMwareVMware vCenter Converter Standalonelogs.

Upon reviewing the logs, I see the following error:

[#1] [2015-01-27 11:31:16.775 04316 warning 'App'] Failed to get info for \.PhysicalDrive0: error Read \.PhysicalDrive0 disk layout: Incorrect function (1)

Researching this error, I arrive at another VMware KB article which indicates GPT partition support was not available in vCenter Converter editions lower than 5.1 (I had installed 4.3).

 

I’m starting to plan for an upgrade of VMWare ESX 4.1 U1 to ESXi 5.0 and since ESXi 5.0 makes this possible to do an in place upgrade, I’m hoping things will go smoothly for my environment.
Here’s a checklist/pre-requisite for upgrade.

• Upgrade vCenter Server (vCenter Server 4 does not support connecting to ESXi 5 hosts)
• Check the server hardware you are installing ESXi 5 onto is supported and on the VMware HCL.
• Login to the VMware license portal to check/upgrade/buy your vSphere licenses.
• Read the ESXi Setup Guide to ensure you understand the pre-requisites.
• Download the VMware ESXi 5 ISO file from the VMware download area.
• Burn the ESXi 5 ISO to a CD.
• Disconnect all Fibre Channel connections (if any) and boot the server from the CD.

Upgrade vCenter Server

Some notes collected from around the ‘net.
Popping Clouds:

• Don’t use a “!” in your administrator@vsphere.local password. It will cause the SSO installation to roll back.
  • I actually run into this one every time with SSO. For some reason I cannot help but put an exclamation point in the password.
• When upgrading from 4.1 to 5.x you typically have to pay attention to your SSL certificates. They are (at least in my case) usually expired. In this installation we are using self-signed certificates, so simply renaming the SSL directory in “ProgramDataVMwareVMWare VirtualCenter” to something like “SSL.old” will cause the install to generate new SSL certificates.
• Make sure you enable certificate validation in vCenter prior to the upgrade from 4.1. Found in the vCenter client under Administration/Server Settings/SSL settings
• Eject or upgrade any 3.x hosts prior to the upgrade.
• Make sure that the Microsoft Error Reporting service is set to “Manual.” If it is set to “Disabled” the installation of the SSO components will fail.

I got kicked in the face by this again, and I even had the resolution documented internally.  Lost 45 minutes looking through logs before I finally search VMware KB for it.  Argv!

Unexpected exception: converter.fault.clonefault
(converter.fault.CloneFault) {
dynamicType = ,
faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
description = Unknown exception,
msg = ,

This is caused by the source computer not being able to communicate with the ESX server by DNS resolution. Simply added the DNS entry into c:windowssystem32etchosts and I was good to go.
VMware’s KB on this:  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1034292