Take the 2-minute tour ×

I have a server centos 5.5 running vmware server 2 on it. I decided to install esxi5 on a different machine and test it. I copied one of my virtual machines on esxi 5. But machine I copied gives a blue screen error. I even converted copied machine using vmkfstools -i uploaded.vmdk final.vmdk on esxi but still same. I can see windows 7 logo while loading then this blue screen.

Windows installation is clean, it almost has nothing installed on it and working on vmware server 2 fine.

Here is the screen shot I caught

esxi blue screen error

share|improve this question
Use the Converter tool. vmware.com/products/converter –  Zoredache Aug 1 '12 at 9:47

2 Answers 2

Don't just copy the machine. Use the VMware Converter Standalone to convert it. Besides that, I had a similar problem when using the Converter - after converting the virtual disk adapter changed from IDE to SCSI in a WinXP machine, so I had to do a repair installation with injected VMware SCSI drivers. You should also have a look at the VMware Knowledgebase.

share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote accepted

Ok I found the solution. Since I'm using vmkfstools on the esxi to convert machines running standalone converter is not necessary. Problem was SCSI controller type on ESXI. By default it selects LSI Logic SAS. I changed it to LSI Logic Parallel and now both my windows machines working fine.

My steps are:

1. Copy vmdk files from VMWare Server to ESXI datastore
2. use vmkfstools to convert machines and repair if needed `vmkfstools -i uploaded.vmdk final.vmdk` . If it needs repair it will tell you
3. Create VM using vSphere Client and make sure SCSI setting is LSI Logic Parallel

Machines should run then without any problem.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer


