Blue screen 0x0000007B boot error with 64-bit Windows 2003 virtual machine converted from physical machine.
I am running VMWare Converter Starter Edition version 3.0.0 build-39557 installed on a Dell PowerEdge 2950 (a couple of months old) running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 R2 (version 5.2.3790, SP1 with all the latest updates). The server has SCSI RAID drives (2 separate arrays for a physical C: and D: drive).
The physical machine is a new clean installation of 64-bit Windows Server 2003 with no other software installed except for VMWare Server and Converter.
I am attempting to create a virtual machine from this machine to run in VMWare Server (version 1.0.1 build-29996) on the same physical machine. The conversion appears to succeed, but when I attempt to start the new virtual machine, it begins to boot, displays the Windows 2003 startup screen briefly, and then fails with a blue screen with the following error:
STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFFADFD520F3C0, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)
I understand the "0x0000007B" means that it can't access the boot device for some reason. I have searched these forums and the knowledge base, but haven't found a solution to this problem.
I have been able to successfully convert and boot a 32-bit Windows Server 2003 physical machine as a virtual machine running in this same VMWare Server. I don't have any other 64-bit machines to test this with.
I am logged in directly to the console of the physical machine with the administrator account. I enabled virtualization in the BIOS. I have tried various combinations when building the virtual machine (customizing or not, fixed or variable disk sizes, importing both C: and D: drives or importing only the C: drive, etc). I have the SYSPREP files from the x64 installation disks locally on the server, and I have run SETUPMGR in this folder to create a SYSPREP.INF file. All of these various attempts have failed with the same boot error.
Is it possible to build a 64-bit virtual machine using VMWare Converter Starter Edition? Any suggestions on how to resolve this issue?