Have problem in updating the ESX and VC from 3.0 to 4.0

[knatesan]

Hi ,

i have a ESX 3.0 setup and managing that server using VC2.5 and i have the license for the same.

but unfortunately my license expired on Aug7th and i thought of updating the whole setup to 4.0 ( i have license for the same).

(I have some critical VM's in that ESXhost. which i dont want to disturb.)

without knowingly my team have uninstalled the VC 2.5 and tried to update with vSphere 4.0.

Now from vSphere4.0 i couldnt manage this ESXhost .

I couldnt update the ESX host to 4.0 also( since this ESXhost is in active state. but all the VM's are in poweroff state)

Now how should i put this host to maintenace mode ?

How should i retrieve all my VM's runningin the host storage ?

What is the best way to achieve this?

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,

kamal.

[Chuck8773]

Since the VM's are powered off, and the host is not in VC, can you physically remove the disks that contain the VMFS file system? Then you could upgrade the host without fear of losing the VM's, put the disks back in and add it back to VC.

Make sure you have a good backup of the VM files prior to deleting anything.

Next step, look at a SAN.

Charles Killmer, VCP

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[knatesan]

Thanks for the response.

But all my VM's are in the HOST storage itself. ( say 500 GB single HDD)

In this case, how can i update?

THanks in Advance.

-kamal.

[Chuck8773]

I assume that single hard drives holds the VMFS partition as well as the ESX OS partitions? Buy another hard drive and copy the vm files to it prior to installing.

Best practiceis to have multiple hard drives along with a RAID controller. Keep the OS partitions on a separate RAID set from the VMFS partition.

There is a way to upgrade while preserving VMFS partitions, but I would personally go the route of removing it from risk.

Charles Killmer, VCP

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[knatesan]

But my problem is,

I have all my VM' s in ESX local storage ( RAID 0 configured)

How can i copy all the vmdk files to the other HDD.

THanks,

kamal

[Chuck8773]

After adding the hard drive to the host, you can use the VI client to format it VMFS. Then either Storage vmotion or shut the VM down and migrate its disk files to the new drive. If none of that works, SSH into the host and cp the files to the new drive. You may need to use vmkfstools to format the drive from the command line.

Charles Killmer, VCP

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[knatesan]

Thanks for the response.

Would be glad to get step by step approach.

my issue is, i have RAID 0 configured ESX host in which i have all my VM's

If i add one more HDD and install ESX 4.0 on it and what is the next step?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thanks,

kamal,

[Chuck8773]

Add another hard drive

Move your VM's to it

Reinstall ESX to the original RAID Set

Move the VM's back to the original storage after the install is done.

RAID 0 is great for performance but horrible for drive failure. Try using RAID 10.

Charles Killmer, VCP

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[knatesan]

Thanks for your response.

Issue is solved.. followed the below steps.

1. logon to webaccess of the particular host.

2.through webaccess i was able to take the back of the vmdk files to the local system(VC system).