How to Fix: Error Exporting VM on Virtualbox (OVF) to VMware

Infopackets Reader William B. writes:

" Dear Dennis,

I am running a server virtual machine inside of Virtualbox and it's been quite slow. I've read that VMware Workstation has twice the performance (roughly). Out of curiosity, I tried to export my current virtual machine in Virtualbox using the Open Virtualization Format (.OVF or .OVA) but I get an error every time I try to export: 'Could not create the exported medium Server-disk001.vmdk (VERR_IO_CRC).' I am not sure what to do and would like to export this virtual machine off of Virtualbox so I can give VMware Workstation a try. "

My response:

I asked William if he would like me to look into this using my remote desktop support service, and he agreed.

Below I will discuss my findings.

How to Fix: Error Exporting VM on Virtualbox (OVF) to VMware

There are a few ways around this issue:

1. Install VMware Vcenter Converter Standalone Client (now owned by Broadcom) inside the virtual machine and attempt to export that way. Normally, VMware Vcenter Converter is used to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine, but in this case, I'm using it to convert a virtual machine into another virtual machine format compatible with VMware Workstation.
    
2. Install and use a disk imaging program such as Macrium Reflect to create a disk image backup of the virtual machine, then create a virtual machine with similar BIOS settings and then restore the backup and pray that it works.

I chose option #1, however, I ran into a number of issues:

1. After installing VMware Vcenter Converter version 6.4, I immediately received an error 'FAILED: Insufficient permissions to access the source.' After much research on this topic and after unsuccessfully applying a few fixes, I was able to sidestep the issue by installing an older version of VMWare Vcenter Converter version 6.1. Worth noting is that VMware Vcenter Converter version 6.6 (at the time of writing) is available for download, but I don't know if this will fix the issue. Far as I recall, I've had this issue a number of times in the past and the only way to fix it was to install version 6.1.
    
2. After attempting to convert the Virtualbox virtual machine using VMWare Vcenter Converter version 6.1, it got to around 99% complete and then failed with yet another error. Unfortunately I didn't write down the exact verbiage of the error, but it had to do something with not being able to apply a BCDEdit command to update the boot record of the operating system disk of the newly converted virtual machine.
    
3. Luckily VMware Vcenter Converter version 6.1 did not delete the converted virtual machine files and I was able to install VMware Workstation 17 on the Host operating system and imported the (failed) .VMX file successfully and ran the virtual machine without major issues, though I had some configuration changes to make afterward.

TPM Option Missing in VMware Workstation

William told me he wanted to upgrade the virtual machine to Windows 11, which meant that the VM had to be encrypted and a TPM (trusted platform module) added in order to meet the requirements. However, the ability to add TPM wasn't showing up in VMware Workstation under the VM settings -> Add menu. Very strange, indeed.

The reason for this (I believe) is that the older VMWare Vcenter Converter version 6.1 (circa 2016) did not support TPM. To fix this, I manually created a Windows 11 virtual machine in VMware Workstation, then reviewed the .VMX configuration file, and through trial and error I was able to find the setting that allowed me to add TPM. To do so, I backed up the original .VMX configuration file of the recently converted Virtualbox virtual machine, then changed the virtualHW.version = "11" to virtualHW.version = "20".

I hope that helps.

Additional Support

If this is over your head and you would like assistance with your virtual machine, I can help using my remote desktop service whereby I can connect to your machine and remotely fix the problem for you. Simply contact me, briefly describing the issue, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

About the author: Dennis Faas is the CEO and owner of Infopackets.com. Since 2001, Dennis has dedicated his entire professional career helping others with technology-related issues with his unique style of writing in the form of questions-and-answers; click here to read all 2,000+ of Dennis' articles online this site. In 2014, Dennis shifted his focus to cyber crime mitigation, including technical support fraud and in 2019, sextortion. Dennis has received many accolades during his tenure: click here to view Dennis' credentials online DennisFaas.com; click here to see Dennis' Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science (1999); click here to read an article written about Dennis by Alan Gardyne of Associate Programs (2003). And finally, click here to view a recommendation for Dennis' services from the University of Florida (dated 2006).