We've been restoring guests from tape using Arcseve 16.5. What we get is a .vmdk for each virtual disk on the guest.
The .vmdk files look like what ought to be -flat.vmdk files. We can't add them as an existing hard drive and they are the full size of the virtual disk. They are not what I would expect as the .vmdk descriptor file.
So what I've done (and this has worked successfully pre 16.5 upgrade) is rename the .vmdk to -flat.vmdk, use vmkfstools to create a .vmdk for the same size as the restored virtual disk, redefine the guest and add the newly tailored virtual disks as exisiting disks.
Now, however (with our 16.5 arcserve), after performing these steps when the guest powers up I can see in the log that the disk opens, but the system does not boot. It hangs on a blank console screen. No error messages.
I've mounted one of these virtual disks on a running guest and through disk manager can see two partitions. They look like a boot partition and a filesystem, however both disk manager and fsutil do not recognize the NTFS filesystem.
I've talked with CA (arcserve vendor) and they suggest I talk with vmware folks.
Does anyone know of a technique I can use to determine if the restored disks are valid and/or a method to correct them?
Can anyone spot a flaw in my process so far?
Even better, has anyone else run into this issue who may know the fix?
Thanks in advance for any posts.
