I recently had to move a virtual machine from Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 to VMWare ESXi 4.0. The easiest way to perform this seemed to be the VMWare Converter Tool, which worked with no problems. The machine was a Windows Web Server 2008 SP1 (not R2). When the machine was fired up, however, I got a STOP 7B code. Well, the complete code was actually STOP 0x0000007B (0x80599BB0, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000). Looking through various sites, I didn’t see anything specific for this migration, but several references to hard drives not found. Checking the settings, the original system was configured as a generic SCSI device, while VMWare had automatically imported as an SAS device.

To fix the problem, I first made sure the machine was powered off and then right-clicked it in the inventory list. Select Edit Settings and then click on the SCSI controller that is listed. If it’s listed as a LSI Logic Parallel SAS controller, click Change Type and select LSI Logic Parallel instead. Reboot and the machine goes through and sets up the correct drivers with no further problems.

Don’t forget to install VMWare Guest Additions. Even if you remote into your system from another machine most of the time, there are still some good drivers.