Unable to backup Virtual Machine from VDR

[Ace007]

Hello.

I am trying to take backup for Window XP virtual machine in VDR, from vsphere client. the destination is network share with full permissions and plenty of free space.

The error message in the logs. = Failed to create snapshot for XP, error -3941 ( create snapshot failed)

Please help. Thanks in Advance.

[AndreTheGiant]

Do you have VMware Tools installed in your XP?

How much free space do you have on your C: in the XP VM?

Andre

[Ace007]

Thanks for your reply,

I have 2 Partitions in the XP Vm, C: - 8 GB - Free space is 4.73 Available. 😧 20 GB - Free space is 19 GB.

Thanks in advance.

[AndreTheGiant]

Free space is ok.

VMware Tools are installed?

Can you manually create a snapshot of your VM?

Andre

[Ace007]

Yes Vmware tools are installed.

When i tried to take snapshot its saying,

Initiated guest OS shutdown

XP

Another task is already in

progress.

I tried to reboot it but saying same message another task is already in progress but nothing i there,. i have tried to stop the process with this command in esx console : vmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/<datastorename>/<vmname>/<vmname>.vmx stop hard Then also its saying Another task is already in progress.

What can i do in this case.

[AndreTheGiant]

Do you have enough space on the datastore?

What's the output of the .vmsd file in the VM's folder?

Andre

[Ace007]

Yes i have Plenty of space available in Data Store. Around 90 GB is available.

.VMSD file in the vm folder is empty. its showing 0.00 KB. if i open it by notepad nothing is inside.

Now i tried to selected shutdown from the OS of VM, its shutdown but not completely. its showing this image in the console from vsphere client. Shall i suspend this machine?? or any solution is there ..

[AndreTheGiant]

Just power off the VM from the vSphere Client.

Seems that there is a process or a driver that lock the guest shutdown procedure.

Andre

[cryptonym]

FYI, the power off options will also not work, nor reset or any other. It is thoroughly confused about the state of the vm. I think VDR is leaving them in an unknown state, as it threw this error every half hour all weekend it appears.

Exact same issue here. And the spinning logo never shuts down. I vmotioned all other vm's off of the ESX host, then did a shutdown on it. It came back up and allowed me to take a snapshot manually, but VDR is could not make a snapshot, it had a timeout error, and now the machine is unstoppable and blocked from all operations. So, it looks like VDR is the root cause.

I see they posted a VDR 1.1, and am downloading now for a full reinstall. This VDR is not really at a GA release level... more like alpha/beta code. Nice theories if they can make it work and not do more damage than good.

[admin]

Prior to using VDR, were you able to manually snapshot your VM? Note that VDR uses the same platform capabilities for snapshot as a manual snapshot.

[cryptonym]

Manual Snapshots work outside of VDR. I've noticed that after VDR has an issue, it seems to leave the vm in an unstable state. Any operation at all seems to always say "another task is already in progress".

Also, I applied VDR 1.1 and it has the same issue it appears.

[Ace007]

what i did is i copied the vmdk files with the configuration files and moved it to backup by copying. then i moved remaining vm's to other host, then rebooted the host then got them back. now its working fine.

But i think the problem was with vmware tools on that particular machine, because last time when i installed windows 7 also faced the same issue, it will work fine upto installing vmware tools. after installing vmware tools it never booted.

is there any other solution for stopping the thing which says always - Already another task is in progress. i have tried many ways to stop it but i couldnt.