Unable to Access the VM After Replication Using Double Take

[ejcs001]

I am getting the prompt above in the serial console connection to a GCP VM after using Double Take replication software from on-premise to GCP. Any idea what happened?

BdsDxe: loading Boot0005 "Windows Boot Manager" from HD(2,GPT,70B9298F-6A7E-40B4
-993C-881879AC1F4C,0x8000,0x32000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
BdsDxe: starting Boot0005 "Windows Boot Manager" from HD(2,GPT,70B9298F-6A7E-40B
4-993C-881879AC1F4C,0x8000,0x32000)/\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi

UEFI: Attempting to start image.
Description: Windows Boot Manager
FilePath: HD(2,GPT,70B9298F-6A7E-40B4-993C-881879AC1F4C,0x8000,0x32000)/\EFI\Mic
rosoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
OptionNumber: 5.

[fadya · Accepted solution]

The message indicates that UEFI detected Windows Boot Manager. The message is not necessarily an error. What you care about is the messages after especially from serial port2. You can verify this output as an example.

As for migration from on-prem it might be better to use the Compute Engine migration tool as you may have issues with licenses (current approach). Generally you can not bring your own license (the Operating system physical core license) unless if you are using sole-tenant nodes and that might not fit your needs in terms of costs as you are reserving the physical machine as a whole. 

[ejcs001]

Hi, @fadya. I am getting the same prompt in serial port 2. The SAC terminal is not available, which I presume is not normal? Connecting to serial console gives the same prompt and it is not interactive.

[fadya]

If SAC terminal is not accessible when interacting with serial port console like this example, most probably your image replica is missing the guest environment and other requirements for the migration (example requirements for importing virtual disks). Quoting from the same document and if importing a virtual disk:

"Although you can import any disk image to Compute Engine, if you are importing your own Windows Server boot disk images, they must run a Compute Engine—supported operating system. You must ensure modifications are made so Windows can boot from the instance; otherwise, the operating system itself won't boot. To create Windows Server instances or SQL Server instances on Compute Engine, you can either migrate an entire Windows Server system using the VM Migration Service, or use one of the public images to create Windows Server instances."

As advised it is best to use the migration tool as it prepares your image on-prem and then recreates it in the cloud with proper licenses. You can also assess if other methods serve your use-case. 

[ejcs001]

JUST FOR THE RECORD: I have discovered the cause of this issue. There is an inconsistency between the CMO and FMO, which is the boot mode, CMO is using Legacy BIOS, and FMO is using UEFI. Upon trying to match the boot mode of the two VMs, we have now successfully migrated/replicated a VM from CMO to FMO (on-prem to cloud, VMware to GCP) using Double Take software, thus resolving this issue.