VmWare converters disk content was old data

[karlmaus]

Hello,

I am using  ESXi 5.5.0 and want to copy a virtual machine from ESX to Vm workstation.
For this I have used VM-converter standalone.

When I started the VM after conversion on my desktop I was surprised: The hard disk shows old data.

It looks like a old snapshot but I am not using any snapshots.

Has anybody an idea where this behavior comes from?

BR,

Karl

[patanassov]

Hello

Not sure what you mean, please be more specific - what kind of conversion did you perform? V2V (i.e. converting the powered off VM) or P2V (powered on)? Is it Windows or Linux source? By not using snapshots I suppose you mean VMware snapshots of the source VM, right?

Regards,

Plamen

[karlmaus]

Hi,

• I started vmWare converter and selected "convert machine" with source type "vmware infrastructure virtual machine"
  (VM on ESX is powered off)
• As destination type I have choosen "vmware workstation or other virtual machine" (locally on harddisk)
• Host OS: Win7, 64but
• Guest OS: Win7, 64bit

BR,

Karl

[patanassov]

Well, Converter transfers the content of vmdks as it is using disklib. You mentioned there are no snapshots on the source, but can you double check it? Pardon me if that sounds stupid, but that's the only thing I can think of to cause such an issue.

If the source machine has snapshots, Converter copies the current state. So, if somehow it has been reverted to some old one, it will copy the old data. Perhaps, if something has gone wrong with the snapshot tree, this could also happen (just speculating)

Regards

Plamen

[karlmaus]

Hi,

I had a look onto the fils on ESX and was surprised: There are several disk files even though there is only one HD configured.

Maybe this comes as the VM was transferred from a workstation to ESX (not "born" on ESX)?

Please could you have a look into screenshots and/or config files? I have attached them in a  zip.

BR,

Karl

[patanassov]

That's very strange. Seems some mess has occurred when copying it from WS. Probably the 'old' WS machine has been named WIN7_64B. There is only 1 .vmx file - TIA.vmx, but there are 2 .vmsd files - TIA.vmsd is empty (that's why there are no snapshots visible in the client), while WIN7_64B.vmsd refers to a snapshot - WIN7_64B.vmdk. OTOH TIA.vmx refers to WIN7_64B-000001.vmdk as disk file.

A safe way to proceed is to power on the machine and do a P2V. Thus it will clone the data as seen by the GOS notwithstanding any snapshots.

If you feel like hacking, you may try to rename WIN7_64B.vmsd to TIA.vmsd (after first backing up all VM files!!) to see what can be done with snapshots. However I don't feel confident what to expect. Also may be hostd might need to be restarted

HTH

Plamen

[karlmaus]

Thanks for your help.

I have made a "P2V" online conversion which fixed the problem.

BR,

Karl