P2V server 2012r2 DC using VEB bare metal restore

[pgross]

We have a single physical 2012r2 Essentials server with DC, DHCP, DNS and file services roles. I would like to convert this to a VM on the same box. Can this be done by creating a VM and doing a bare metal restore to the VM using Veeam EndPoint Backup?

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Paul,

First: Welcome to the community forums!

Your idea is indeed possible, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind since we are not a truly P2V solution:

1) Create the recovery media first, but in ISO format. USB pass-through and Hyper-V is not possible without 3rd party software and mostly that leads to time-outs and such
2) Create the VM, but make sure that the config (CPU/ MEM/ and especially disks) is more or less the same (The good thing about a VM is that you afterwards can lower resources if necessary so...)
3) Boot the VM on our recovery media ISO, and do the BMR (choose manual if you need to restore to a smaller disk for example)
4) After the restore, you might get into issues and possibly need a few more reboots. Don't worry too fast, you most likely still have some RAID drivers or similar from the physical box that need to be removed so perform a driver "cleanup" afterwards

Hope it helps
Cheers
Mike