Virtual Machine refuses to start after conversion from Physical Server

[Seaton_High]

Hi All

Has anyone had experience with converting a physical server to a virtual server????

I am running on Centos Linux Host machine

The Guest OS is Win2000 Server, running MSSQL Server and AMLIB - library software.

I have run the converter tool and all seems to have happened ok but when i try and start the virtual server it returns an error saying:

Unable to change virtual machine power state. The config file /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/Libserver/Libserver.vmx is not registered.

Please register the config file on the server.

For example:

vmware-cmd -s register "/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/Libserver/Libserver.vmx"

Please can anyone help me with how to register the file, i cannot find a way to do it and when i try and run the register line in the Terminal Window i get

"VMControl error -11: No such virtual machine"

I really want to avoid having to rebuild this server from the ground up.

cheers

wayne

[admin]

I'm assuming you are running either VMware Workstation or Server. Why not just use that interface, and navigate File->Open and browse for the .vmx file to register the VM?

[Seaton_High]

Yes I am using virtual server.

If thats how you "register" a virtual machine then I am already doing this. Does this mean that the vm convert from a physical server is just not going to happen in this case or is there something I can do to solve this??

[admin]

I would use VMware Server, create a new VM, and then instead of creating a new .vmdk virtual disk, select "use an existing disk" and point to the .vmdk of the VM that you are having difficulty registering.

It's possible that there are some permissions problems with your .vmx file.

[Seaton_High]

Thanks i shall give it a try today

[Seaton_High]

i confused a bit - i am not given that option when creating a new conversion task or even in VMWare server console

[admin]

Converter creates a new VM and new .vmdk for you always. My suggestion was to go to Server and create a new VM, but instead of creating a blank .vmdk, to use the .vmdk created by Converter.

[Seaton_High]

ok - i understand that but i cannot find anywhere when creating a new vm that i can point it to the .vmdk file created by the converter or do u mean create the vm on the server and then copy the .vmdk files from the converter created vm folder to the server created vm folder

[lholling]

Rather than using "Typical" when creating the new VM choose "Custom".

When you go through the wizard for custom when you get to the disk section one of the options is "Use existing disk" you never see this option when taking the default of typical.

Leonard...

[Seaton_High]

Thankyou everyone for your suggestions.

It appears that the permissions and ownership of the .vmx file were wrong and once i added execute and changed the ownership from "adm" to "root" all has now worked according to the plan........

Wayne