Converting from Hyper-V using VMWare Converter: Take 2

I ran into another cause of the dreaded “Unable to obtain hardware information” when trying to convert some VMs from a Hyper-V 2012 server. Turns out that VMware Converter will throw this error if the VM is using the newer .vhdx virtual disk format instead of .vhd.

To get around it, convert the disks to .vhd (because Hyper-V server is a core server, I used the PowerShell cmdlet "Convert-VHD".

Power down the VM

Convert the vhdx to vhd using the command: Convert-VHD - Path C:\Path\To\Virtual\Drive\VMname.vhdx -DestinationPath C:\Path\To\Virtual\Drive\VMname.vhd

Reconfigure the VM. Detach the old vhdx drive, attach the vhd drive.

Run converter again.

Presto!