Convert a Hyper-V 2012’s vhdx to VMware’s vmdk

I have been searching for ways to convert a Hyper-V VM to VMware. I have not having good luck with this. We (at work) are not trying to migrate from Hyper-V to VMware… it is just that sometimes we have to send out one of our virtual servers to another datacenter who run VMware there.

Of course, there is a simple way to install a client and do a P2V kind of conversion which spits out a VMDK created out of a running VM. I was not interested in that type of conversion. I had a VHDX, lets just convert it to VMDK!

Here is what I have tried and does NOT work:

Using Hyper-V OVF export tool.

I blogged about it here.

Using VMware Converter standalone 5.1

It does not recognize .vhdx or .vhd files.

Here is what people in the ‘net are saying:

Use WinImage

A software called WinImage is reported to work but it is not free. It does have a 30 day trial.

Use XenConvert

I tried using XenConvert to convert the VHD to OVF. Then I tried to import it into VMware using the vSphere client. Alas, that did not work, the importer failed saying “Could not parse the document: ‘encoding specified in XML declaration is incorrect’. I guess the OVF XenConvert spat out is not compatible with VMware.

Use StarWind V2V Converter

I found people recommending StarWind V2V Converter. It is free, but does require (free) registration.

My approach to this conversion problem {this really works!}:

I downloaded StarWind V2V Converter. After installing it (yes, it needs to be installed), I used it to convert a VHD to VMDK. I chose the option IDE when it prompted me to choose what kind of disk do you want in the VMDK.

After the conversion finished, I created a new VM in vSphere with no hard disk. Then I uploaded the VMDK file to the datastore of the vSphere server. I added that vmdk to the settings of the VM. The VM booted up just fine. Just needed to add VMware tools and configure the IP address etc.

So the last option worked fine for me. To reiterate the steps I took to convert a .vhdx VM file on Hyper-V to a .vmdk file on VMware:

Using VMM stop they Hyper-V VM
Make a copy of the .vhdx file locally on the Hyper-V server
Use Hyper-V manager to convert that .vhdx to vhd.
Copy that .vhd to your workstation’s local HDD (or where ever you have StarWind converter installed.
Use the StarWind converter to convert that .vhd to .vmdk. Make sure you choose the correct “Image Format”. For ESX server hosts (including free ones) the correct one is VMware ESX server image. The other ones do NOT work for ESX. I found that out the hard way, hoping to create a thin provisioned image.
Using vCenter client, create a blank VM
Upload that .vmdk to the datastore
Link that vmdk to the VM
Boot that VM
Configure VM
Enjoy!

Tip: if there is not enough space on the Hyper-V server itself to hold the converted vhd, you can use PowerShell cmdlet “Convert-VHD) to send the vhd to a UNC path. I have tried it and it works fine. In my case both the source and destination were on UNC paths and the conversion still worked fine. Note that you will have to run the cmdlet from the Hyper-V server itself OR any other workstation which has the Hyper-V 2012 role installed. I did not have any workstation which had Windows 8 + Hyper-V so I ran the cmdlet directly on one of my Hyper-V 2012 hosts (which have no GUI installed). Worked like a charm Smile

15 Comments

tony

May 29, 2013 at 9:23 am Reply

Thank you – I wanted to do this and was having a hard time!

Jan

July 16, 2013 at 2:38 pm Reply

thanks for that post !

bt

September 12, 2013 at 1:26 pm Reply

thanks!

CarlosO

October 23, 2013 at 9:04 pm Reply

Hi, perhaps you can help me.
I converted my vhdx to vhd and then to vmdk using your steps.
Then i created a machine on vmware by selecting to install OS later.
I chose to use a single file and then replaced the default vmdk file created when i created the machine with the one i converted.
This was on a folder where othe files existed with different extension:
vmxf, vmsd, nvram, log…
then i started the machine but after a couple seconds of the windows logo it crashes showing a BSOD.

thanks.

Rajeev

October 24, 2013 at 9:29 am Reply

I think you may need to change the virtual hard disk settings inside VMware. I suspect that when the vHDD was used in Hyper-V it was configured as an IDE. When you put it in VMware it may need to ne configured as an IDE again (instead of a SCSI). Or it could be the other way around as well….so check the settings of the vHDD.

Also , many times the BSOD tells you what went wrong. Look at the top left, there would be an error …google that error. I bet you can find what went wrong.

Jonathan

December 20, 2013 at 2:18 am Reply

Thanks for taking the time to post this information. I’m not sure why VMware doesn’t include this in it’s standalone converter! I’m with you, I wasn’t interested in converting my clients VM’s HOT as it never works out well. the best way is cold! or create a local network that only the vm and the converter/ESXI can talk on and move it that way.

Anyways thanks for the info it worked perfectly.

Jonathan R Young

NW Guy

January 29, 2014 at 12:46 pm Reply

Thanks for this post. I followed it to convert hyper-v virtual machines to vmware workstation 10 vm’s . It only works if your virtual machine on Hyper-v is running IDE drives. If the virtual machines has a SCSI drive in Hyper-v , VMworkstation cannot find OS on drive.
I tried both the options with startwind for disk allocation that is – expanding disk and pre allocated disk space , Does not work

Rajeev

February 4, 2014 at 12:25 pm Reply

yes, with the old Hyper-V 2012 (not the newer R2) the boot disk can only be IDE. I hear that the new R2 version allows booting from v SCSI disks….however the only OSes supported in that config are Win 8+ and Win 2012+ 🙁

Aaron

February 9, 2014 at 5:18 pm Reply

Awesome man, Worked perfectly using Starwind V2V Converter. Saved me a bunch of time figuring that one out.

Matt Black

March 31, 2014 at 11:18 am Reply

Thank you! This worked perfectly. We have a similar situation, where different departments used HyperV or VMWare.

jagan

June 2, 2014 at 2:56 am Reply

Thanks a lot buddy 🙂

Domenic Alvaro

June 24, 2014 at 7:15 am Reply

I just found another very useful way to turn a Hyper-V VHDX into a VMware virtual machine. I’m surprised it actually worked! I did need an existing Server 2012 R2 server, though.

1. Log onto a pre-existing Windows 2012 R2 server (physical or virtual)
2. Attach the VHDX you want to convert using the Disk Management console
3. Use VMware Converter to perform a P2V or V2V, but exclude the servers pre-existing drives and just convert the attached VHDX drives.
4. Configure your destination VM and turn it on.

VMware Converter converted this perfectly and the server booted up without any manual intervention. You just need to ensure you attach the disks with read/write access so a VSS snapshot can be taken.

Easy!

Khayyam

January 7, 2016 at 3:17 am Reply

Hi! Thanks for the solution. Followed all the steps correctly and tried to power on the VM but it gives “operating system not found” in VMware whereas the OS is present and booting fine on this VM in Hyper v. Please help.

Roderick Decker

August 6, 2016 at 6:49 am Reply

Thank you! Great and very useful post!

I also tried qemu-img for Windows, and it works perfectly.

It’s free, portable and it runs under CMD.

For example, to convert VHDX to VMDK:

qemu-img.exe convert FileSource-Image.vhdx -O vmdk FileDestination-Image.vmdk

More examples at: http://www.sysadmit.com/2016/08/vmware-convertir-vhdx-en-vmdk.html

Nicolás Conde

August 14, 2023 at 1:44 pm Reply

Hi.
You can just download and install qemu and use qemu-img, a utility which converts every vritual disk format I know into any other. It’s multiplatform free (as in ‘freedom’) software.
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