SO..... You just performed a Physical to Virtual (P2V)conversion of a computer and when you when to boot it (Crickets chirping)..... It did not come up!
Perhaps what you saw instead in the Vsphere Client Console was a black screen with only a dash (-) ?
Sometimes the road to virtualization and consolidaton of your infrasturcture as like real roads has "pot holes"..... This can be one of them :(
We have hit this problem before and 7 out of 10 times the following has been the problem and the resolution:
Master Boot Record (MBR)
The MBR basically is the partition or sector(the first) on a hard drive which contains the code the BIOS uses to boot an OS from the drive.
Problems with the MBR of a system may prevent the system from booting. Sometimes during the conversion process (using the vmware converter standalone) this happens.
What I usually do when this happens is I mount an .iso in the vSphere client for the OS that is affected (i.e. XP Pro, Windows Server 2003, etc) and start a recovery console session.
Heres How:
Boot with the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation CD.
Shortly after the "Press any key to boot from CD" prompt you will be propted for a "Recovery Console Session" (believe it is F2), or you can wait till you are later prompted to press R to repair a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation.
If you have multiple operating systems on your machine be sure to select the appropriate one from the menu. You will need to know the local administrator password when prompted!
Once you have got past that point you will be presented with a command prompt.
At the command prompt enter the command "fixmbr" (no quotes). After the warning messages of possible doom and gloom that will be displayed next, type "Y" and press "Enter" to start the repair process.
After it completes just type "Exit" to leave the recovery console rebooting your machine/vm.
Hope this helps!
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