How to create a single image of Windows Server 2008 R2 to use on a Azure Virtual machine

Question

I am trying to migrate from a colocation where I own the servers to Azure.

I have been following this article: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-create-upload-vhd-windows-server/

My problem is that I cannot create a bootable .vhd file, I used Windows Server Backup and that created multiple .vhd files and when I use HyperV and set each of .vhd to the Virtual Hard Disk of the HyperV Virtual Machine, to boot up any of the multiple .vhds, and none are bootable.

I want to make an image or .vhd of my server, so I can upload to Azure storage blob and then create a new virtual machine with it.

I heard Disk2vhd was the solution I needed: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-create-upload-vhd-windows-server/

Answer 1

The issue it sounds like you are facing is that your VHDs are not ready to be used with Hyper-V. There is no boot loader in the VHDs taken by Windows Backup.

You're correct that you need to to a physical to virtual (P2V) conversion on them before you work through the article you've linked to. System Center Virtual Machine Manager achieves this but unless you already have it you'd be better of using a free tool, such as disk2vhd.

Once you've done this, you need to create a Virtual Machine using something like Hyper-V or VirtualBox so that you can sysprep it and follow the other instructions in the article you linked to.