Conversion Failure: 'Unknown error returned by VMware Converter agent'

[Macadrian]

I have 2 SATA hard drives. I want to convert it to file server. I would like to have all the drive size as equal. However the problem is that it starts with drive D:. Also the conversion fails and I get the error message 'Unknown error returned by VMware Converter agent'. What is the reason for this problem and how can I solve it?

[Snake08]

Reboot your ESX nodes. Can you see any "ghost" VMs which is named something like "untitled(1)". These appear to be the VMs that wouldn't import. May be they are blocked somewhere. It is appearing because the restart didn't terminated the process and so they are left open. If this still doesn't work then uninstall the agent and then reinstall it once again.

[Spyrus]

Make sure you are using or have downloaded the latest version of VMware Converter. If you want then you can upgrade it as follows:

1. Uninstall VMware Converter. Go to Start > Control Panel > Add / Remove Programs. Uninstall any version of VMware Converter, Converter agent, or Converter Enterprise.
2. Restart the server.
3. Install the latest version of VMware Converter using the local Administrator account. If you are going to use the remote hot clone feature you may choose a custom installation to only install the Converter Agent.
4. If the server is running Windows 2000 or Windows NT, you must restart the server otherwise Converter won't start.

[Steve123]

I don't much about solution to your problem but talking about my consequences, whenever I have any problems with permissions/routing I use a trial copy of Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery on the source server. With this I take an image of the server and then I transfer it to my network via ftp or usb drive. Next I use the vmware converter to convert the image to a virtual machine.

[Zachary]

I think your physical server is in DMZ. Try to boot into the server from a VMware Converter and perform a migration. The best approach to converting a Windows operating system to a virtual machine is to perform a hot migration with VMware Converter installed locally in the operating system. If this is not possible, then perform a cold migration using the Converter boot CD.