Creating a vmdk from an rdm

[cserafin]

I have an iSCSI target that acts as the os drive for a virtual machine. I was looking to copy the os drive to a datastore and detach the iSCSI target while the vm is still running. I basically want to convert a virtual RDM os drive into a physical os drive. Possible?

[dblenz]

You should be able to svMotion the VM to a datastore without downtime.  I know I have done this with VMs that have RDMs attached as secondary drives but I haven't done it with your specific setup. 

If that doesn't work the other method would be to use Converter Standalone.  Convert the system like it was a physical server and let Converter sync at the end.  Obviously the target would be a VM using a datastore.

[rcporto]

You can convert the RDM (if using virtual mode) to VMDK online using Storage vMotion, but if using RDM (physical mode) you will need use cold migration.

Take a look: VMware KB: Migrating virtual machines with Raw Device Mappings (RDMs)

[TomHowarth]

One other possibility is to do a P2v conversion on the guest, but instead of treating the source as a virtual machine, which will fail because of the pRDM,  you treat it as if you are converting a phyiscal machine.  this way the conversion software has no knowledge of the underlying virtual hardware.

This also means that the requirement of down time is minimized to a much smaller window.

[cserafin]

So interesting thing happened when I storage vmotion the vm. It actually went to a black screen where the cursor was visible but not blinking. Interesting

[TomHowarth]

what exactly do you mean by a black screen?  was your guest still responsive?