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khalidsayed
Contributor
Contributor

vm machine could not power on

dear experts

I hope you and your loved ones are all healthy.

We have VM that hardware version is 14 and running in esxi 6.7. As per project requirement we need to migrate the VM to esxi 6.5 , I  downgraded hardware version from 14 to 10  by editing  .vmx file and migrate the vm to ESXI 6.5 but after editing the machine not power on , when power the machine  i have below error

Task name Power On virtual machine

Target test2020

Status Module 'SecureBoot' power on failed.

can  any one advise please.

Thanks in advance.

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5 Replies
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

The proper way to downgrade VM hardware is to create a new VM at the needed level and attach the existing hard disk. Hand editing the VMX is not a good idea.

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CRad14
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Use the VMware Converter to change the VM Hardware and migrate it to a new destination.

VMware Knowledge Base

https://www.vmware.com/products/converter.html

Conrad www.vnoob.com | @vNoob | If I or anyone else is helpful to you make sure you mark their posts as such! 🙂
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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Make sure you turn off UEFI Secure Boot in that VM's settings before downgrading the virtual hardware.  It will not be automatically disabled during a virtual hardware downgrade, and the error you are seeing occurs because of the attempt to power on a VM configured for Secure Boot on a virtual hardware version that can not support Secure Boot.

--

Darius

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khalidsayed
Contributor
Contributor

if we do that we can export the vm later  with new hardware version to use it in another vcenter ?

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NathanosBlightc
Commander
Commander

As other experts said you can create a new VM and attach the existing VMDK (virtual disks) to this new one. So no need to worry about when or where you want to attach this new VM. You can add the VMDK files later to a new VM in a new vCenter/ESXi hosts (Just consider VM Hardware version compatibility) because you can detach/attach the virtual disks to the current or new VM whenever you want.

About the Secure Boot, it's one of the UEFI features. When you edit the *.vmx (config file) of VM, if it's not a BIOS you can find the EFI and change or remove the raw (I think it started like firmware="efi")

Please mark my comment as the Correct Answer if this solution resolved your problem
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