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paul_xedos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

recovery of 2 disk, single snapshot system failed

We had a host failure over the weekend which involved recovering from our copied systems. It has worked fine on vmware vms ( 6.7) with single disk but we have a system that had two disks which can not find the boot disk.

Our method of backup is to

  1. copy the vmx file
  2. take a snapshot
  3. copy the flat file vmdisks ( not the sesparse ones)
  4. remove the snapshot.

The reason for snapshotting is to get round the device busy problem of copying an active disk file.

The copied files look like this

perfweb-000001.vmdkperfweb.nvram    perfweb.vmsd     perfweb_5-000001.vmdk  perfweb_5.vmdk
perfweb-flat.vmdkperfweb.vmdk     perfweb.vmx      perfweb_5-flat.vmdk

vmware.log

grep vmdk *vmx

scsi0:0.fileName = "perfweb_5.vmdk"

scsi0:1.fileName = "perfweb.vmdk"

more perfweb.vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

encoding="UTF-8"

CID=dfa4ef68

parentCID=ffffffff

createType="vmfs"

# Extent description

RW 536870912 VMFS "perfweb-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"

ddb.deletable = "true"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "33418"

ddb.geometry.heads = "255"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.longContentID = "1bebe3a906b8671aad09f8aedfa4ef68"

ddb.thinProvisioned = "1"

ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 99 98 c6 0d ed-ae de 52 30 eb fd 14 5d"

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "14"

The only error I can see on power on in vmware.log is

DISK: failed to create nomad vob context.

and more signicantly

No operating system was found.

Any pointers what to try next would be greatly appreciated

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Moderator: Thread moved to the Backup & Recovery area.


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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

You do not copy the nvram - that means that the recovered VM uses default boot-order : floppy/iso first, next scsi0:0, finally network

So in your case you very likely need to go into the BIOS / EFI and adjust bootorder so that first boot-device will be scsi0:1


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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paul_xedos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks very much for your reply. The nvram was not copied but it showed up in the ls command as the system was running at the time

All that was copied was the vmx and vmdk files.

The boot disk is actually on scsi0:1

Things I've tried:

making it single disk and pointing perfweb.vmdk as scsi0:0

selecting the boot drive via EFI

Capture2.PNG

checking boot settings via Boot Maintenance Manager

Capture.PNG

Thanks
Paul

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paul_xedos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Attaching the vmx file in case it's a config issue

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paul_xedos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It seems if I "boot from file" via EFI I can boot the system.

The problem suggests corrupted vmx file and to create a new vm but point to the existing vmdk device as explained here

I'm not sure if this option exists in vsphere as it only seems to allow new device creation

Is there a way to create ( not register ) a new vm and point to an existing disk using esxi and vsphere 6.7?

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paul_xedos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

As the solution to the problem now seems to have moved away from the original question, marking this as answered and will create a separate post on that specific question

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paul_xedos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Unfortunately, I was wrong in thinking I had a fix for this issue. 

If anyone has any pointers what the issue could be eg. re-install the boot loader or change a vmx or vmdk setting that would be great

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