Convert Physical Server to Hyper-V using Virtual Machine Converter.
The following article is a step-by-step guide on using Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.1 to migrate a physical server to a Hyper-V virtual machine.
The first step is to download the MVMC tool at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=42497.
After downloading and installing, go to the start menu and run the tool.
First, we need to choose what type of car we are remodeling. In our case, we are converting a physical server, so we would choose to convert a physical computer.
Next, we need to specify the source machine. You can enter the IP, hostname or fully qualified domain name of the machine you are converting.
Now we need to scan the system and collect information for the wizard, so we click the Scan System button in the next prompt. If everything went well, click “Next”.
On the next screen, we choose which volumes we want to convert. For example, I removed the Recovery F: and E: drives for the purposes of this tutorial and left only the C: and D: drives. The VHD type must be dynamic to avoid a long wait for the tool to create the entire disk, even if we are not using all of the allocated space.
Next, we indicate the name of the virtual machine, the number of processors and the amount of RAM.
We then specify the Hyper-V host we are migrating to. The name can be an IP address, hostname and fully qualified domain name.
On the next screen, we specify the network path that will be used to store the virtual hard drives on the target Hyper-V server. I decided to create a new virtual machine folder in the root drive C:
Next, we need to select the destination of the workspace. The target workspace can be a network drive or a local drive. Here the disks are converted before being copied over the network. It’s like a buffer.
Next, we choose which network we want to connect the server to. Just in case, I decided to leave the Not Connected value. We can always configure this in the settings of the virtual machine after migration.
After that, we go to the Summary page and click Finish. Now the migration process has begun and all we need to do is wait for it to complete.
Thank you for taking the time to read this guide and I hope it helps you migrate your physical server to Hyper-V properly. Enjoy!