Recreate a VM from two vmdk Flat files

[mediatr]

Hello,

I have done a reboot for the the whole esxi without shutdown the VMs.

Once rebooted, the VMs are display as unknown . After some reseach I found that I can rebuild every VM with the VMDK Flat file using vmkfstools .

I'm stuck on a VM who has two Flat files : 

1 - Machine-flat.vmdk (50Go)

2 - Machine_2-flat.vmdk (300Go)

On the first attempt I created a vmdk only for the one flat file (Machine-flat.vmdk) and tried to boot the VM who use Ubunut 12 as OS.

Ubuntu doesn't boot and it tells me that something is going wrong (serious errors were found while checking disk for /storage)

So, I suppose that this VM has two partitions but can't find the way to mount them. 

I created the second virtaul partition on VM esxi parameters and select the VMDK for the second flat file (Machine_2-flat.vmdk) but doesn't work. Does this the right way and I'm missing something ?

Please if someone has passed by this or can help me ?

[continuum · Accepted solution]

Create Machine.vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=12345678
parentCID=12345678
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW XXX VMFS "Machine-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "YYY"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

---------------------------------------

and Machine_2.vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=12345678
parentCID=12345678
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW XXX VMFS "Machine_2-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "YYY"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

Look up the siye on disk of the 2 files and calculate XXX and YYY like I explined here:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-vSphere-Discussions/Please-remove-https-kb-vmware-com-s-art...

Stop using any more vmkfstoolsß commands.

Assign Machine.vmdk to scsi0:0

assign Machine_2.vmdk to scsi0:1

set bootorder and put scsi0:0 on top of the list.

That would be most probable fix if all you have is the 2 flat.vmdks in an empty dir.

If you have older logs or existing vmx, vmsn or vmsd-files then use details according to them.
Most important: no more vmkfstools - commands and no new GUI-created ones

Ulli

[mediatr]

Thank you very much for your quick response:

#Machine.vmdk file look like 

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=f5471a1f
parentCID=ffffffff
isNativeSnapshot="no"
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW 104857600 VMFS "Machine-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "buslogic"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "6527"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.longContentID = "04f95867d51ce1740d1f248cf5471a1f"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9a 55 1a a9 e4-73 07 f6 9a 4b 92 3d 8b"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "10"

--------------------------------------------------------

#Machine_2.vmdk file look like 

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=c5f4c175
parentCID=ffffffff
isNativeSnapshot="no"
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW 629145600 VMFS "Machine_2-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "buslogic"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "39162"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.longContentID = "cdbb65a207bfa65c60183ffec5f4c175"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 95 11 a4 18 f1-e2 fa 94 ff ae da a3 0e"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "10"

------------------------------------------------------------------

My vm configuratione like 

But my VM while booting give me this error :

[continuum · Accepted solution]

most triviaj explanation could be that the disk uuid has changed and so mount according to fstab fails

can you mount manually ?

[mediatr]

Yes, you're right, I've been able to remount it manually by editing the /etc/fstab and setting the new uuid (/dev/sdb1). The old one was /dev/sda1, so linux cannot recognize the partition.

Thank you a lot for your replies.