Hyper-v migration issue from vmware

Question

It is during the process of converting and migrating Vmware virtual machines to the Hyper-V platform that an error is sometimes reported: disks located at the specified positions (SCSI, 0, 1) will be moved to the IDE bus. The virtualization platform on the host vm-hs03.XXX.com does not allow the boot disk and system volume to be located on the disk connected to the SCSI adapter. How should this be handled and resolved Moved from System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Answer 1

Hi @YE Ming Cheng

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A forum. It's my pleasure to help you today.  When migrating VMware VMs to Hyper-V, the boot disk and system volume must not be attached to a SCSI controller unless the guest OS and VM generation support it.   

  1. For most legacy VMs (Generation 1), Hyper-V requires the boot disk to be on the IDE controller. If you encounter an error about disks at SCSI (0,1) being moved to the IDE bus, you should:  

a. Shut down the VM.  

b. Use Hyper-V Manager to remove the SCSI controller from the VM.  

c. Attach the boot disk to the IDE controller.  

This ensures the VM can boot properly, as storage attached to a SCSI controller will not be accessible if the guest OS does not support it.    Note: IDE controllers do not support hot‑add disks. Use SCSI controllers only for additional storage drives or iSCSI/SAN connections.   

   2. For Generation 2 VMs (with UEFI firmware, supported on Windows Server 2012 R2 and later), booting from SCSI is allowed, but for most migrations, especially from older systems, use the IDE controller for the boot disk.  

If you believe this information adds some value, please accept the answer so that your experience with the issue would help contribute to the whole community.  

Best wishes!  
Titus Bui. 

Answer 2

To resolve the issue of disks being moved to the IDE bus during the conversion of VMware virtual machines to Hyper-V, you need to ensure that the virtual hard disks are configured correctly. The error indicates that the virtualization software does not support virtual hard disks on an IDE bus for the specified host.

Here are the steps you can take to handle this:

1. Change Disk Adapter Type: Before conversion, ensure that the virtual disks are connected to a SCSI adapter instead of an IDE adapter. You can do this by modifying the virtual machine settings in VMware.
   • Locate the primary disk (.vmdk) file and change the adapter type from IDE to SCSI (e.g., ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic" or ddb.adapterType = "buslogic").
2. Remove and Reattach Disks: After changing the adapter type, remove the disk from the virtual machine settings and then reattach it as a SCSI disk.
3. Verify Configuration: Ensure that all disks intended for conversion are compatible with Hyper-V and are not connected to an IDE bus.
4. Use System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM): Utilize SCVMM for the conversion process, as it provides a wizard-based experience that can help avoid common pitfalls during the migration.

By ensuring that the disks are properly configured to use SCSI instead of IDE, you should be able to successfully migrate your VMware VMs to Hyper-V without encountering this issue.

---

References:

• Convert a VMware VM to Hyper-V in the VMM fabric
• Unsupported VM Configuration status on VMware virtual machines in Virtual Machine Manager