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Belgarath20
Contributor
Contributor

Vmware vCenter Converter Standalone clones wrong disk

Hi All,

can somebody help me in solving the below issue...

I created a clone from a machine on ESXi with copying the files and changing the name... This works and I have a fully indepedently running clone...

I now try to move to a new ESXi server with vCenter Converter Standalone...

The Converter detectes the Clone, but if i start the Migration Job, it copies the original disk file, not the cloned one...

Any idea how to prevent this?

Best regards,

Stephan

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Moderator: Thread moved to Converter Standalone


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
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dbalcaraz
Expert
Expert

Hi,

Really weird...

So, you created a clone and obviously you have a full independent VM with the same specs as the original.

Why do you have to use vCCS to "move" it to another ESXi?

Anyway, verify that you're using the correct VM when using vCCS, never see that error and I made many P2V and V2V.

Another thing to check is the .vmx file of the clone and see which are the vmdk files that are using (maybe something wrong is there, who knows...)

Hope this helps.

-------------------------------------------------------- "I greet each challenge with expectation"
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Belgarath20
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

yes, this is really weird...

I tried to unregister the "Template Machine"... Then the Standalone Converter is choosing "randomly" another VMs harddisk for cloning...

I don't know, what the Converter is doing there...

Cloning the harddisk with CLI tools and copying to Destination ESXi via Scp is working as expected... I guess scp'ing the original VMDK files might also work...

The reason for "moving" or cloning them to other ESXi is to have a "backup" before upgrading to the newest ESXi version... I don't have any time to setup all machines from scratch again, if upgrade fails...

Best regards...

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patanassov
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi

Copying files via scp is not the same thing as converting. There are subtle yet important differences. It is also not the same thing as cloning a VM or doing a VM backup. I also would have a hard time guessing what has gone wrong. My suggestion is to use the tools as intended. In unsupported scenarios you are basically on your own.

Regards,

Plamen

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Belgarath20
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Plamen,

Hi All,

I like to migrate the machines from an old ESXi host to a new one...

But this failes, as the vCenter Standalone Converter chooses the wrong disks for the Virtual Machine to convert...

Any hint on how to fix this?

Is there any successor of the vCenter Converter as it is officially Unsupported by Vmware (https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/support/product-lifecycle-matrix.p... ​)?

Best regards

[Update: Typo corrected]

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Sounds like the is some issue between the references in the VMX file and VMDK files for your VM.

Compare these files between your original VM and for the "clone" VM - I wonder if the files for the "clone" still reference the original VMDKs.


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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Davo-CC
Contributor
Contributor

I too had the problem with the converter pulling a vastly earlier “template” version of the VMs.

I had to migrate ESXi 6.5 hosted VMs back to local Workstation (player) VMs for a friend of mine as the host was failing and he had a much newer and faster PC (he’s also more familiar with player and windows for replication, etc.).

The VMs were originally built on workstation pro or similar and imported (with the standalone converter) to ESXi;  they seem to have had some kind of linked clone relationship as far as I could ascertain.  The three machines when brought over from ESXi were showing only the content of their original build (from which they were based years ago).

I overcame this by:

  1.  Creating a new VM with basic details and no disk attached
  2. Importing the disk using the console in ESXi to the new location (so in this case “vmkfstools –i "$a" "$b" -d thin”  where $a was the source VM’s VMDK file and $b was a suitably named VMDK in the newly created target VM); using PuTTY as the terminal I found the console to be very fussy too
  3. Linked the newly copied VMDK to the new VM and booted it – confirmed it was complete (I put a small indicator text file on the desktop)
  4. Shut that VM down
  5. Used the standalone converter (externally) to convert the newly created VM to a local VMWare Player client
  6. Loaded that into player (some upset about missing SATA controllers but nothing serious) – confirmed all details intact and indicator text file is there
  7. Deleted newly created VM

If any source systems had snapshots I integrated all of those to the current use position first (using Delete All from the ESXi web console).

Hope this helps someone, I found relatively little about migrating from ESXi back to local workstation VMs.

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