VM on disk but not in Inventory

[ixoni]

I have a VM that disappeared from inventory but is still in the datastore (not local). I believe it was turned off. I tried adding it back to the inventory but received a message that a vm was already registered with that name. I believe these are the steps that led to this condition:

I had a consultant come in a few weeks ago and replace an ESXi host with a new one. All the VM's were moved off the old host. The VM in question would have been turned off as we were not using it. I just noticed today that it was not in inventory because I am now ready to use it.

Another change that happened a few weeks ago was replacing vCenter with the vCenter appliance. I am not sure if that had anything to do with it or not.

Any suggestions how I might see the vm in inventory again?

[memaad · Accepted solution]

Hi,

As you see this message, "received a message that a vm was already registered with that name" , while adding the virtual machine inventory use different name. However make sure that this virtual machine is not already.

Regards

Mohammed

[ixoni]

Hi Mohammed, I renamed the .vmx file and was able to add the vm to the inventory. I also had a template with the same issue and it worked for that also.

Thank you.

[ixoni]

Unfortunately I spoke too soon. When I tried to start the vm i received this error:

An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM FileServer.

Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/50f2f928-ac0de3b2-54d9-e61f135288b3/File-2/File-2.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Failed to lock the file