Question about changing the hard disk mode of a VM

[pegasus00720111]

This is an easy question I'm sure, but I'm having trouble finding a direct answer doing a search.  We have one VM where the second hard disk was inadvertantly setup in Independent mode as persistant and is now in production on an ESXi server running version 4.1 and vCenter 4.1.  Because of this we are unable to clone the VM to template or do snapshots.  I realize that in order to change the hard disk mode, this is something that cannot be done while the VM is powered on.  But, is there risk of data loss by changing the hard disk mode to no longer be Independent?  I may use VMware converter and copy the VM using this method just to be on the safe side prior to making the change, but just wanted to verify that the data on this disk should remain in tact.

Thanks,

[idle-jam]

changing of the mode will not affect much it's more of a settings. if you're worry you can always do a vmware converter virtual 2 virtual clone.

[Walfordr]

I have yet to see data corruption/data loss due to disk mode change.  To be safe continue with your plan to backup the VM.

[ETastic]

I'm running ESXi 4.1 update 1:

Shut the machine down, change the setting and boot back up.... no risk of data loss just a setting change. (As always in any case... ALWAYS have a backup).

[petedr]

I believe there shouldn't be any issue changing the virtual disk to not be an independent disk. Outside of backups you may want to do a test with a different test VM just to verify everything would be good.