Install a SCSI driver for a VMware guest machine

  

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When creating a new guest virtual PC in VMware, say a windows XP machine, you will find by default that the virtual hard disk is a SCSI disk. To make XP work in most cases, you will have to splice in a SCSI driver for your guest VM machine.  To do this, please follow the steps below:

All Windows Versions

To copy the appropriate disk controller driver from a working virtual machine with a Windows guest operating system:

1. Power on the source for the conversion. The source can be physical or virtual.
2. Download the VMware SCSI Disk Controller driver diskette at http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp.
3. If the source is virtual, attach the driver diskette to the virtual machine's virtual floppy drive.
   
   If the source is physical, use any of these methods to copy the files from the diskette image:
• Extract the disk image into files and copy them to the source.
• Attach the diskette to a virtual machine and copy the files from the virtual diskette drive to the physical source.
• Write contents of the image onto a floppy diskette and insert the diskette into the physical source.
  Note:  Image extraction software is required to use this method.
4. Access the floppy diskette or files on the source from My Computer.
5. Right-click vmscsi.inf and click Install. The VMware SCSI drivers are installed.
6. Restart the source to complete installation.
7. Perform another conversion with VMware Converter.

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Converting Physical PCs to Virtual Machines

  

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Converting physical PCs into VM machines is starting to become part of normal life for technicians. There are a couple tools out there that I have come across to help you along if you are a novice user so you too can enjoy the utilization of all your hardware resources. 

First is Microsoft’s disk2VHD.  This software is very easy to use and creates VHDs that will work with Microsoft’s virtual machines. I have used this to create virtual machines for Microsoft’s Hyper-V and it worked very well.  

The next is from VMware which is called VMware Vcenter Converter.  This will give you an array of options.  Whether you want to create the VM machine across a network or turn a local machine that you are sitting in front of into a virtual machine, this software will do the trick. It’s very user friendly and has plenty of help guides on VMware’s website.

Dennis Foote - Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!

Create a Private Cloud in your Business for $100

  

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Virtualization is a hot topic these days.  While VMWare is considered to be the top software for virtualization, it also comes with a sky high price tag.  The other two major vendors in virtualization technology, Citrix and Microsoft, have very competitive offerings, often for a good savings.

In particular, Microsoft has recently begun to release their Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 product for free.  This is a major move on the part of Microsoft to try to encourage the industry to try their Hyper-V virtualization technology and compare it to their competition.  In our experience here at Terminal, it is definitely worth a try, whether you're currently using competing virtualization products or considering virtualization in your infrastructure.  Hyper-V is a very robust and well-performing product.  While it may not perform as well as VMWare in the large enterprise environment, it is more than capable of handling anything thrown at it in the small and medium business market.  That coupled with being entirely free make Microsoft's Hyper-V an almost unbeatable deal.

The one downside to Microsoft Hyper-V has been the ease of management.  Unlike Citrix or VMWare, if you install a Microsoft Hyper-V server, you are not able to actually manage that server from its own keyboard and monitor.  Instead, you need a second server or workstation to connect over the network to the Hyper-V server.  This is often tedious, impractical, or costly and has been a major reason people have not given Microsoft's Hyper-V much of a chance.

However, new software released by vtTechnology finally helps Hyper-V overcome this limitation.  The software, known as vtCommander, installs directly onto the free version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and allows the server to be managed directly from the server console.  This eliminates all the headaches and hurdles associated with getting Hyper-V up and running and makes it, in our opinion, by far the best virtualization option for small and medium businesses.  The cost of vtCommander?  A mere $100.  Terminal has been so thrilled by vtTechnology's groundbreaking software, we've partnered with them to help bring their benefits to all our customers.

If you're interested in seeing how virtualization can improve your business agility and cost you virtually nothing, Contact Us today.

Brian St. Marie - Sr. Systems Engineer

Give Us a Call 617-731-6319 and Ask a Professional IT Support Technician Any Questions You May Have!