H.9 Target Windows Machine Becomes Unbootable on Second Boot

Issue: The target Windows machine becomes unbootable during the second boot.

When PlateSpin Migrate executes the Configuration Service on a target Windows machine, the normal networking tasks performed during the second boot can be problematic in the following scenarios:

  • If the target machine has the same network adapter hardware and networking drivers as the source machine.

    The network drivers that the target machine requires are the same as those already installed on the source machine being migrated. It is not necessary to re-install drivers. In some scenarios, removing and re-installing drivers can result in the target machine becoming unbootable.

  • If the target machine is booting from SAN.

    If a target machine boots from SAN, Migrate installs drivers before the first boot. If the Configuration Service removes these newly installed drivers during the second reboot, the target machine becomes unbootable. It is necessary to avoid the driver install tasks on the second reboot.

Workaround: PlateSpin Migrate provides two light networking configuration settings for the PlateSpin Server that optimizes the network configuration process on the target machine during the second boot and helps avoid situations that can cause a target machine to become unbootable. Light networking is useful for P2P, V2V, and C2C migrations as well as for X2V semi-automated migrations where the networking hardware on the target VM is manually configured to match the source machine. See Section 5.10, Configuring Behavior for Installing Network Drivers on Target Windows Workloads.