The Virtual Machine cannot be moved to the destination computer. The Hardware on the destination computer is not compatible with the hardware requirements of this Virtual Machine.

Hello Folks,

Today I came across a vague error while moving a Virtual Machine from Hyper-V Host 2012 to 2012 R2 using Shared Nothing Live Migration.

My environment is very simple consisted of two standalone Hyper-V hosts, one is 2102 and the other is 2012 R2.

Ok, so having this explained, let’s try to move the virtual machine including the storage, and see the error:

As you can see, the error is vague and does not give you enough information, but at least we know that the error is around hardware compatibility.

Hardware: Memory, CPU, Network, etc…???

The first thing that comes into my mind is the Processor Compatibility since I am moving a running VM from one host that has a different processor from the second host.

So, let’s check if the Processor Compatibility is checked on the host. No, it’s not selected…

So, let’s select Migrate to a physical computer with a different processor version and try to live migrate again, but keep in mind that the Virtual Machine needs to be shut down in order to change the Processor Compatibility, and this requires downtime.

Let’s try to move the VM now and see…

Uhhhhh :( The same error…

So, who is your friend in this situation? Guess who???

PowerShell :)

We will move the Virtual Machine with PowerShell this time and see the difference:

Ahhhh, we have now a better description of the hardware error…

[The Ethernet connection resource pool with ID “EthResourcePool2” does not exist on the destination host].

So, the hardware error is networking.

If you’re more interested in Resource Pool you can find more parameters and technical information here.

let’s now dig deeper with PowerShell and see how can we solve this issue.

The first thing we will check is the VM state, it’s running… we will shut it off, then we will check the VM Resource Pool available on the host (EthResourcePool1 and EthResourcePool2) in my case.

The second thing, we will check the EthResourcePool number used for this Virtual Machine, EthReourcePool2 is used (in my scenario), we will change to EthReourcePool1 to match the same resource pool name on the second host, then turn on the VM and move it to the destination host.

And here you go…

Hope this will help you if you encounter the same issue.

Enjoy your weekend!

Cheers,
/Charbel