Cannot boot new VM when migrate from VMware to HPE VM Essentials Software cluster

[tungxp]

We have just migrate our RHEL 8.8 from ESXi 8 - vCenter 8 to HPE VM Essentials Software cluster but the new VM stuck at booting.

We followed HPE VM Essentials Software migration guide.

Below is our configuration:

Virtual Image:

New instance configure:

[dccolpitts]

Couple of things I see.  First your screenshots seem to show you are creating new VM, as opposed to having migrated one from VMware to VME (which is what you stated you did).  Second, why is nestled virtualization checked - is your HVM host virtualized as well?

Was your VM configured for BIOS or UEFI under VMware?  That's my initial guess, that it was previously set to UEFI and is was migrated as BIOS based.  The process for converting was covered last week in a different thread here, or you can go look at my blog post where I detail it as well:  https://blog.jbgeek.net/2025/09/04/howto-convert-a-hpe-vme-vm-from-uefi-to-bios-and-back/

dcc

[tungxp]

Thank you for your reply,  dccolpitts 

We followed HPE VM Essentials Software migration guide (page 21), it guides us "Deploy an HPE VM instance type using the virtual image created" .

We also try to uncheck nestled virtualization but nothing change.

Here is our XML configuration for new VM:

  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-i440fx-8.2'>hvm</type>
    <bootmenu enable='no'/>
    <smbios mode='sysinfo'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic eoi='on'/>
    <hyperv mode='custom'>
      <relaxed state='on'/>
      <vapic state='on'/>
      <spinlocks state='on' retries='8191'/>
      <vpindex state='on'/>
      <synic state='on'/>
      <stimer state='on'/>
    </hyperv>
  </features>

We see that our source VM using EFI as screenshots below:

So we try to followed your guide convert from BIOS to UEFI by add some line as below:

  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-i440fx-8.2'>hvm</type>
    <loader readonly='yes' secure='yes' type='pflash'>/var/morpheus/kvm/OVMF_MVM.fd</loader>
    <nvram template='/var/morpheus/kvm/OVMF_VARS.fd'>/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/nvram/New_HVM_Instance_VARS.fd</nvram>
    <bootmenu enable='no'/>
    <smbios mode='sysinfo'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic eoi='on'/>
    <hyperv mode='custom'>
      <relaxed state='on'/>
      <vapic state='on'/>
      <spinlocks state='on' retries='8191'/>
      <vpindex state='on'/>
      <synic state='on'/>
      <stimer state='on'/>
    </hyperv>
    <smm state='on'/>
  </features>

but it show error:

error: unsupported configuration: Secure boot is supported with q35 machine types only
Failed. Try again? [y,n,f,?]:

we couldn't save that configuration 

How to solve that? Thank you !

[jimy395nue]

Hello,

Have you confirmed that the VM’s hardware compatibility settings (CPU, RAM, virtual NIC, etc.) match the requirements?

mymilestonecard