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jrkurosawa
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vmkfstools disk clone failure

Hi,

I seem to be having an odd problem trying to import a vmdk from a VMWare Server into ESX. I have copied the vmdk files into an EXT3 partition, but when i run the below to import the vmdk to the VMFS partition i get an error.

Import command:

# vmkfstools -i /tmp/TechWiki/Deki_Wiki_Hayes_1.8.1d_VM.vmdk -d thin /vmfs/volumes//474f89b3-2f09619c-31ff-0018fe2fc59e/techwiki/

Destination disk format: VMFS thin-provisioned

Cloning disk '/tmp/TechWiki/Deki_Wiki_Hayes_1.8.1d_VM.vmdk'...

Failed to clone disk : The file already exists. (39)

There are no files in the target directory (/vmfs/volumes//474f89b3-2f09619c-31ff-0018fe2fc59e/techwiki/). I have created several different target directories on the same VMFS volume but get the same error every time.

This is the first time I've tried using vmkfstools. Any assistance is appreciated.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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You'll need to specify the the destination file name so you should have: /vmfs/volumes//474f89b3-2f09619c-31ff-0018fe2fc59e/techwiki/filename.vmdk.

You can also run this from the teckwiki folder and thus skip the destination path: vmkfstools -i /tmp/TechWiki/Deki_Wiki_Hayes_1.8.1d_VM.vmdk -d thin filename.vmdk. You can also use the data store name instead /vmfs/volumes/storage1/techwiki/filename.vmdk (you can substitute your datastore name where I've put storage1).

Is there a specific reason for using a thin disk? You're probably aware but you'll take a performance hit on the LUN as the file needs to grow.

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Dave_Mishchenko
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You'll need to specify the the destination file name so you should have: /vmfs/volumes//474f89b3-2f09619c-31ff-0018fe2fc59e/techwiki/filename.vmdk.

You can also run this from the teckwiki folder and thus skip the destination path: vmkfstools -i /tmp/TechWiki/Deki_Wiki_Hayes_1.8.1d_VM.vmdk -d thin filename.vmdk. You can also use the data store name instead /vmfs/volumes/storage1/techwiki/filename.vmdk (you can substitute your datastore name where I've put storage1).

Is there a specific reason for using a thin disk? You're probably aware but you'll take a performance hit on the LUN as the file needs to grow.

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jrkurosawa
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Thanks Dave. Don't know how I missed that...been too long a day. I was using thin disk as this is just a test esx server and the entire disk is 120GB. When I do production I'll be allocating the full-size disk.

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mgt576
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Did this really work for you ? We are having the same issue, but we still get the error that files cannot be overwritten

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