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Yuhe
Contributor
Contributor

Composer rebalance - path to user disk not consistent

Hi,

After I changed the pool datastore, I rebalanced my linked clone frome a datastore (A) to an other (B), different lun and san. I had a problem with the OS disk and did a refresh to correct it. Now everything seems to work, no complaint from the users, the user data disk is still there. But their is a mess with the user data disk : when I go to

Pools->Inventory->Desktops(View composer detail) I get this :

DesktopUserImagePersistent DiskOS Disk
Desk_1dom\dummyw732Datastore_BDatastore_B

Which is correct and expected, now going to

Inventory->persistent Disks I still have a user disk stuck in the old datastore

Persistent DiskUserDesktopPoolDatastoreCapacityUsageStatus
Desk_1-vdm-user-disk-Ddom\dummyDesk_1Pool1Datastore_AunknowPrimaryIn Use

When I look to vm settings, I dont have the "vdm-user-disk" in the disk, but I still have a user disk but with standard naming (Desk_1_1.vmdk).

I may have messed up at certain point in the migration.. now the question is how to manage this. It's like the user data disk was only copied instead of  migrated to the new datastore. It is not seen in "persistent disk" but still present in the migrated machine..

Excuse my broken english.. :smileyconfused:

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kgsivan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi could you please clarify certain ponits...

1. How do you change the datastore, by editing POOL'S vCener settings ? which all datastore you have changed ?

2. Was this pool ever rebalanced before ?

3. Before rebalancing did you had a chance to look at the User data disk name and path ?

4. What is the View and VI versions ?

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Jubish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Yuhe,

This sounds strange. Are you sure that Datastore_A was deselected in the datastore selection page before doing the rebalance? Also, can you browse the datastore and see if the persistent disk still belongs to Datastore_A?

One  thing that you can try is to go to  Inventory->persistent Disks,  select the persistent disk (Desk_1-vdm-user-disk-D) and click on Detach.  Remember that this will DELETE your desktop and archive your persistent  disk. You can select to which datastore you want to archive the disk.  Select appropriate datastore (in your case Datastore_B). Once archiving  is complete, you can see this disk under Inventory->persistent Disks  > Detached tab. Select this disk under Detached tab and click on  Recreate Desktop. The desktop will be recreated into the pool with the  persistent disk.

Remember that the desktop will be  DELETED and recreated during this process so that any changes made to  the OS disk prior to this process will be lost and the MAC address of  the VM will change.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

- J -

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Yuhe
Contributor
Contributor

@skg

1. yes, I went to the pool settings, remove the old datastore and add the new one. This are the step I followed :

  • change pool settings
  • create a new gold to have it in the new datastore
  • recompose
  • rebalance (had an error here for the os disk)
  • refresh
  • restart the vm

2.no

3. in fact in the persitent disk view, I still have the old path (datastore_A\desktop\desktop_vdm-user-disk.d-...vmdk) but at that place this files does'nt exist anymore. It's like it was copied to the new datastore, but not renamed. The user have their data disk but it is not named or listed as persistent disk.

4. view 4.5 VI 4.1

@jubish

The persistent disk still belong to datastore_A, but in the vm, there is a D drive which contain user data without being named or listed in persistent disks.

I can not detach the old persistant disk, It come back to live and use all the time. As the disk is no more where it pretend to be I don't catch why.

@all

Actually my guess is that the easiest way to go around this mess is to backup the user info of  the user disk (the new one not name _vmd-user..), destroy the old vm, recreate a new one , restore, and the delete the orphaned persistent disks in the database...

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Jubish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Yuhe,

The name of the persistent disk (user data disk) will change during rebalance. It will not have name such as "xxx-vdm-user-disk-xxx". If you are sure that the persistent disk is copied to the new datastore and everything works fine, there is nothing to worry about.

Thanks,

- J -

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Yuhe
Contributor
Contributor

The name change during rebalance ? Sorry I missed that. This could explain why I don't have the named -user disk, but it should still appear in the persistens disk view, no ? And that's not the case, I still have the old one in the persistent disk view..

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Jubish
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Yuhe,

"I can not detach the old persistant disk, It come back to live and use  all the time."

What does this mean?

Thanks,

- J -

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Yuhe
Contributor
Contributor

That mean at the time when I tried to detach them, the status changed to archiving and then the  back to In Use without error message, the disk was not archived.

Now for the user I already create a new VM, when I want to do a detach on the old disk I have a msg "You cannot remove the primary data disk until all the secondary disks have been detached from the VM" that's why i'll need to remove them form de DB i think.

The problem actually is more to have the current disk with user data to appear as persistent disk without having to go through the backup/restore process, than anything else.

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kgsivan
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi Yuhe,

If you detach a user data disk, that disk will be archived to the specified datastore and the source VM will be deleted. according to the pool settings a new VM might create with same name but don't get confused, the detached disk will be listed under "Detached" TAB in the inventory named "Persistent disks'.

"You cannot remove the primary data disk until all the secondary disks have been detached from the VM" <---- This means you have attached a Persistent Disk as *Secondary* to the VM. Typically this is not required for normal operations.  If you want a New VM with existing user data disk and settings then instead of doing "Attach" perform a "Receate" Operation. This will allow to create a new VM by attaching an archived disk as primary.

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Yuhe
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I finally rebuild all the vm with backup/restore of the user data.

Thank for your help.

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