Windows Server 2012 R2 Stuck in Recovery After Migration to HPE VME from VMware

A Windows Server 2012 R2 virtual machine was migrated from VMware vCenter to HPE VM Essentials, following HPE’s official migration procedure and before upgrading the OS.

The migration completed successfully, but the VM failed to boot.

After power-on:

• Windows entered Automatic Repair / Recovery Mode
• In WinRE: diskpart → list disk returned no disks
• In WinRE: diskpart → list volume returned no volumes

VirtIO drivers were already installed before migration, yet Windows could not boot.

Important note:
For this migration, we used virtio-win-0.1.189.iso, as newer VirtIO driver versions no longer support Windows Server 2012 R2. All VirtIO drivers can be found here.

The OS disk was attached directly as VirtIO-SCSI after migration. On Windows Server 2012 R2, the first boot on a new KVM-based hypervisor can fail when the system disk is exposed via VirtIO-SCSI, because the driver is not reliably available during early boot and WinRE.

Following commands are used for solution.

Check VM name on the host

virsh list --all

Stop the VM

virsh shutdown ALICAN-SERV-2012

Backup the VM configuration for just in case.

virsh dumpxml ALICAN-SERV-2012 > /root/ALICAN-SERV-2012.xml

Edit the VM

virsh edit ALICAN-SERV-2012

Temporarily switch OS disk from SCSI to SATA
Before (not booting):

<target dev='sda' bus='scsi'/>

After (temporary fix):

<target dev='sda' bus='sata'/>

Save and exit.

Start the VM

virsh start ALICAN-SERV-2012

Windows boots successfully.

Shut down the VM after confirming Windows is fully up and stable then switch disk back from SATA to SCSI.

Edit again:

virsh edit ALICAN-SERV-2012

Change back:

<target dev='sda' bus='scsi'/>

Save and start the VM:

virsh start ALICAN-SERV-2012

Windows continues to boot normally.

As a result, VM boots successfully on VirtIO-SCSI, No recovery loop and No OS repair or driver reinstallation required. This was not a missing driver issue, but a first-boot controller timing issue. A temporary SATA boot allows Windows Server 2012 R2 to initialize correctly on HPE VM Essentials. After one successful boot, switching back to VirtIO-SCSI is safe and stable. For legacy Windows versions, the storage controller used during the first boot matters.

Wishing you a successful day!

Best regards,
Hasan