Importing a VM into ESX 3.5

[soda0091]

I received a VM from one of my fellow IT and they would like me to import it into my ESX 3.5 environment. What is the best way to do this? I was going to copy the vm information to my SAN where my other vm's reside and then I was going to try and do an import from my VM console.

[ascari]

if you have already copied your vm file in a LUN, from VIC you can browse the datastore end select your .vmx file and then right click and "add to inventory".

Other way is use vmware converter.

Bye Alberto

[weinstein5]

How was this vm created - ESX or ESCXi? If not you will have to convert it to the ESX/ESXi format using converter

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[soda0091]

That part i am not sure of. Is there a way to tell?

[oreeh]

I'd only use Converter if necessary (example: the VM uses IDE disks).

With virtual SCSI disks it usually is faster (and with less trouble) to simply import the disks using vmkfstools.

[arkturas · Accepted solution]

If you dont have the .vmx config file and you only have the .vmdk files you can just create a new VM then point the virtual disks to the existing VMDK's.

remember to set the vdisks to buslogic if its a windows 2000 server or if its windows 2003 + set it to LSI Logic

[oreeh]

Post the VMX file (if you have one).