VMs failed to start after moving Datafile to a new datastore

[Siverian]

Dear all

I get stacked to start my Virtual Machines after moving datafile to a new datastore i get the following message.

• File system specific implementation of LookupAndOpen[file] failed
• The file specified is not a virtual disk
• Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/5c5edece-ed637474-39d3-782bcb4023be/e-office/e-office-000001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
• Module 'Disk' power on failed.
• Failed to start the virtual machine.

[a_p_]

I'm actually not very surprised that you receive this message.

How exactly did you move the files to the new datastore?

As a first step, please run ls -lisa from the command line in the VM's folder, and post the text output (no screenshot please).

André

[Siverian]

[root@Esxi65:/vmfs/volumes/5c5edece-ed637474-39d3-782bcb4023be/e-office] ls -lisa

total 1102135312

499144772      8 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          2660 Sep 13 07:27 .

      4   1024 drwxr-xr-t    1 root     root          1400 Sep 12 10:48 ..

515921988 11488256 -rw-------    1 root     root     11762929664 Sep 12 11:04 e-office-000001-delta.vmdk

503339076      0 -rw-------    1 root     root           321 Sep 12 15:58 e-office-000001.vmdk

570447940 16777216 -rw-------    1 root     root     17179869184 Sep 12 18:31 e-office-Snapshot1.vmem

528504900   6144 -rw-------    1 root     root       5543842 Sep 12 11:04 e-office-Snapshot1.vmsn

532699204 1073741824 -rw-------    1 root     root     1099511627776 Sep 13 07:27 e-office-flat.vmdk

507533380   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root          8684 Sep 13 07:27 e-office.nvram

520116292      0 -rw-------    1 root     root           528 Sep 13 07:26 e-office.vmdk

511727684      0 -rw-------    1 root     root           389 Sep 12 10:48 e-office.vmsd

562059332      8 -rw-------    1 root     root          3132 Sep 13 07:27 e-office.vmx

620779588   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root         57471 Sep 12 18:40 vmware-18.log

637556804   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root         58715 Sep 12 18:43 vmware-19.log

654334020   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root        230668 Sep 12 19:05 vmware-20.log

671111236   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root        281369 Sep 12 19:19 vmware-21.log

687888452   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root         61495 Sep 12 19:25 vmware-22.log

704665668   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root         58086 Sep 13 07:23 vmware-23.log

721442884   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root        227814 Sep 13 07:27 vmware.log

541087812 112640 -rw-------    1 root     root     115343360 Sep 12 18:23 vmx-e-office-2455042451-1.vswp

[a_p_]

From the files' time stamps it looks like the base (flat) virtual disk has been touched at a later time than the snapshot (delta) disk, which is not good.

Anyway. you didn't answer the question? In case you moved the files to a VMFS6 datastore, you will have to move them back to a VMFS5 datastore, since VMFS6 doesn't support delta files anymore. VMFS uses the new sesparse format for snapshots, which differs from that of delta files.

Also make sure that the snapshot chain is still ok, i.e. that the "parentCID" in "e-office-000001.vmdk" matches the "CID" in "e-office.vmdk". In doubt, attach (don't paste) the two mentioned .vmdk files along with the latest vmware.log to a reply post.

André