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rrosenkoetter
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Manually move a VM from ESX 2.5.x to ESX 3.x

I currently have two environments... One that is VC 1.3.1 / ESX 2.5.4 and the other that is VC 2.0.1 / ESX 3.0.1

I currently have a need to get a single VM from the old environment to the new one immediately. Unfortunately, none of the ESX 3.0.1 hosts in the new environment can currently see the LUN that this particular VM is residing on...

How can I migrate this single VM?

I guess I'm asking how to copy a VM from a vmfs2 partition to a vmfs3 partition... Is just a simple as a copy command? Or do I need to use vmkfstools or some other tool? So far, I've done all my migrating using Virtual Center.

FYI - Both the older host servers and the newer host servers have a mount to a common Windows file server share. Also, all the host servers Service Consoles are on the same network so a straightfoward copy between servers is fine too, but will that work?

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ANSA
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Using WinSCP or similiar tool, copy the VMDK file(s) to the shared folder or the VMFS3 partition. Use vmkfstools to import the file(s) e.g.

use "vmkfstools -i your.vmdk" on your ESX3 host to upgrade the vmdk's.

Create a VM and add the exieting newly upgraded VMDK(s) as it's disk(s).

Power on the VM and upgrade the VMTools.

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esiebert7625
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You can use Vmware Converter or copy the file using FastSCP and then import it using vmkfstools -i. Here are some docs I created for doing this from Server to ESX, the process is similar for ESX to ESX. Using FastSCP you can do ESX to ESX direct copies. So copy the vmdk file then use vmkfstools -i to import it to the VMFS3 volume and then create a new VM and tell it to use an existing disk.

Fyi…if you find this post helpful, please award points using the Helpful/Correct buttons…thanks

Method 2- Vmware Converter running directly on Virtual Machine (Hot clone)

• Install Vmware Converter on to the Virtual Machine and reboot if prompted

• Run Converter and select Import Machine

• Click Next at the Welcome screen and Next again at the Source screen

• Select “Physical Computer” as your source and click Next

• Select “This local machine” and click Next

• Select either “Import all disks and maintain size” or “Select volumes and resize to save or add space”, select your volumes and enter a new disk size if necessary and click Next

• Click Next at the Destination screen

• Select “VMware ESX Server or VirtualCenter virtual machine” as your destination and click Next

• At the destination login screen enter your VC/ESX server name and login credentials and click Next

• Enter a Virtual Machine name and folder and click Next

• Select a Host/Cluster and click Next then select a Datastore and click Next

• Enter your NIC information and click Next then click Next again at the customization screen

• Click Finish when it completes

• Edit your new VM’s settings and remove any extra hardware if not needed, ie. USB devices, serial and parallel devices, Floppy drive and change the SCSI adapter to LSI Logic if needed

• Power on your new VM and uninstall VMware tools (VMware server version)

• Restart server

• Remove old virtual machine hardware

o Open CMD prompt and type “SET DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1” and then “DEVMGMT.MSC”

o Select “Show Hidden Devices” from top menu

o Remove old greyed-out non-present hardware, ie. old processor, disk drives, IDE/SCSI controllers, storage volumes, etc.

• Reboot and install VMware tools (ESX version) and you are finished

Method 3 – Use FastSCP and vmkfstools to copy the disk to ESX and convert it to VMFS3 format

• Download FastSCP (http://www.veeam.com/veeam_fast_scp.asp) and install on the VMware Server, FastSCP requires the dot net framework 2.0 so download and install this first if you do not have it (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en ), alternately you can use WinSCP (http://winscp.net/eng/index.php) which is a bit slower then FastSCP

• Once FastSCP is installed run it, click “Add Server” enter your ESX server name/IP, the default port of 22, username and password and click Finish

• Connect to your ESX server, browse to your /vmfs/volumes//temp/Win2003vm1-new.vmdk myVM1.vmdk This will make a copy of your vmdk file in your VM’s directory, you can also change the destination file name to match your VM’s name.

o In the VI Client, edit your VM’s settings, remove the current hard disk (don’t delete it yet) and add new new hard disk, select “Use an Existing Disk” and browse to the new vmdk file in your VM’s directory.

o Power on the VM and if it boots OK you can delete the original virtual disk, you can use FastSCP for this or right-click on your Datastore in the VI Client and select “Browse your Datastore” with the VI Client to delete the two original virtual disk files

ANSA
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Using WinSCP or similiar tool, copy the VMDK file(s) to the shared folder or the VMFS3 partition. Use vmkfstools to import the file(s) e.g.

use "vmkfstools -i your.vmdk" on your ESX3 host to upgrade the vmdk's.

Create a VM and add the exieting newly upgraded VMDK(s) as it's disk(s).

Power on the VM and upgrade the VMTools.

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