vm backup

[dlee_12]

hi! I did a vmkfstools -i with the -d 2gbspare option to backup my vm in my old esx server. This vm is later transferred out to a remote pc using winscp. In the new esx server, I tried copying the vm (.vmdk files) that i backup from the remote pc into the new server using winscp and upload the file through datastores using the VIC. But, when i try to create a new VM with the newly copied .vmdk(from the remote pc) files, i'm not able to find the files when browsing for the files. It seems that it doesn't recognize the files. Any idea?

Another question is does anyone tried audio recording with vdm through the rdp connection? Or is there any third party tools required to support this? Thank you.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You'll want to copy the files up to the host and then run vmkfstools again to convert it to the regular vmdk/flat.vmdk format. The VI client GUI will not display a VMDK when it is not in that format.

For your VDI question I would suggest a new post here - http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/entdesk/vdi

[dlee_12]

hi! I did that. Did not see the flat file as well. All the files name seems to be exactly the same as the files i copied over. :smileyblush:

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Could you post a director listing?

[dlee_12]

hi! The files are in these format. (in the vmfs partition). In the datastore browser, i can see it as vlab5.vmdk with the size of about 5GB plus.

vlab5-S001.vmdk

vlab5-S002.vmdk

vlab5-S003.vmdk

vlab5-S004.vmdk

vlab5.S005.vmdk

vlab5.vmdk

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You'll want to run vmkfstools on vlab5.vmdk so that you end up with 2 new files (vlab5_new.vmkd and vlab5_new-flat.vmdk).

[dlee_12]

hi! tried on several of my backup VMs. It doesn't seems to create the -flat.vmdk file. Here's the command i used.

vmkfstools -i /vmfs/source/xp.vmdk -d 2gbsparse /vmfs/dest/xp.vmdk

Anything wrong with the command?

Thanks.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Remove the -d 2gbsparse - you only use that when you what to create sparse files. That's not the case here.