Disaster recovery

[gymiv]

I have an esxi 5 server. esxi is installed on a usb drive and my lun is on the computer HDD"s that are raid 5. I wanted to simulate a bad usb drive and what i would need to do if i had to reinstall esxi on the usb drive. I removed the usb drive esxi kept working fine, i could access my vm's, run reports, shut down, start up, and other various small tests i ran. I formatted the usb drive and put it back in the server. Reinstalled esxi 5, same exact config, all defaults. using the client i logged into the server and could not see my vm's. I  did a rescan for datastore still could not see vm's. I have put it in maintenance mode and rescanned and rebooted. How do i recover my vm's? This is a test to figure out what to do in case the usb drive dies or becomes corrupt. Please somebody tell me there is an answer for this, or this could end up being real bad.

thanks

[ranjitcool · Accepted solution]

Ookay,

Open the datastore and you should see the vm folders.

Open each folder and right click on the .vmx file - add to inventory.

Remember the fresh esxi does not know where your vms are so you will have to add them to the inventory each time, unless you backup your usb drive :smileygrin:

R

Do mark the right answer as correct.

[gymiv]

Thanks that worked. But what if you have 100 vm's. There has got to be a better way then clicking the vmx file for each one. Do you know of a faster or more automated way of accomplishing this?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

A PowerCLI script such as the one here can do it for you - http://www.vcritical.com/2010/08/register-a-lun-full-of-vms-with-powercli/

[gymiv]

Thats what i needed thanks