unable to open vmdk files?

[VM_ftapia]

So I've had my first taste of ESXi, it's cool looking but very non-user friendly. I can see why people would shy away from the enterprise level products. I have several VMs running in VMserver 1.0.4 they've been running for over a year like that w/o any hitches, I wanted to try out the ESXi product as it was just released and tried to move over one of my VMs from the servers but to my dismay when I upload the vm to ESXi I keep getting the error that it's invalid, many threads on this forum say to use vmware converter and when I do I get the error that vmware convert is "unable to open
network\path\file.vmdk"

why?

I will note that I am on a linux machine running vmware 6.0.4 build-93057 workstation for linux, and that I am running my windows machine inside that where I have vmware converter, perhaps it is in the vm that the problem is occuring?

[VM_ftapia]

I have moved over to a physical windows machine I was getting the same error, thus I tried my simple tried and true easy windows xp machine which is just a windows xp machine no other sw installed sp2. I was able to get this to convert and placed on the ESXi server w/o issues. Thus I then started mapping the location of the virtual machines so my drive letters are z: and y: I've been able to convert 3 machines so far w/o issues. last machine has been taken offline for the conversion and i am back to the error of not being able to open the said vmdk file,

this is the exact error:

Unable to open file z:\sql-dev\Windows 2000 Advanced Server-000001.vmdk

I've attached my Log file... any ideas???

[paragsha]

Hi,

You will need to attach the agent logs (The ones you attached are the client logs). Potential problems could be

1. permissions on file share (You will need to have RW permission on Z:\sql-dev\....) You can check if it lets you create a random file in this directory from your windows box.

2. Make sure that the VM that you are trying to move is not powered ON/suspended.

[VM_ftapia]

As requested I verified that I was able to create a file on the destination directory (no issues there), and I have attached the agent logs

[paragsha · Accepted solution]

From the logs:

Opened 'Z:\sql-dev\Windows 2000 Advanced Server-000001.vmdk' (0xe): twoGbMaxExtentSparse, 41943040 sectors / 20 GB.

"c:\virtual machines\sql-dev\Windows 2000 Advanced Server.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the path specified).

"Z:\sql-dev\Windows 2000 Advanced Server-000001.vmdk": Failed to open parent "c:\virtual machines\sql-dev\Windows 2000 Advanced Server.vmdk": The system cannot find the path specified.

On the machine where you have VMware server installed, you have <some dir path>\sql-dev\ where your "snapshots" are stored. Is Z: mapped to c:\virtual machines\? If yes, then the file z:\sql-dev\Windows 2000 Advanced Server.vmdk should be present. If it is not....that the problem.

However if it is present, then there is some problem. Which version of VMware converter are you using?

Installing converter on the same machine as the virtual machines would surely solve the problem. But it would still be nice if you can tell me which version of converter you have installed.

[VM_ftapia]

I am running the latest VMware Converter I downloaded it 2 days ago...3.03 build 89816, I am in the process of loading vmware converter on the vmware server physical server to see if that fixes the problem...

[VM_ftapia]

Well I just wanted to report back that I have loaded VMware converter on the physical server that hosted the vm's that wouldn't convert and low and behold, it is working... I am now in the process of virtualizing the machine and will be able to host them on ESXi thank you for your help!!!:)