HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED Server 2012 and vmware

Tried upgrading a Server 2008 R2 x64 virtual machine on a ESXi 4.0 host to Windows Server 2012. The upgrade and installation went fine all the way. But when booting a fast “:(” appears with message HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED.

I have a DataCenter with ESXi 5.1 as well that officially have Server 2012 support so I copied the .vmdk and .vmx-files from the datastore on the 4.0 host and added them to the vSphere 5.1 environment. I also upgraded the virtual hardware to version 9.


So….now…..time to play….result:
SUCCESS!