Unable to enumerate all disks ESXi

[hammer1972]

Hi, I am trying to move some VM’s from an older ESXi (version 6.5.0) to a newer one (ver 6.7.0). Every now and again, I get a VM that won’t start up on the new ESXi server. Comes with and error Failed - Unable to enumerate all disks.

I am running Centos 7 on the VM and using tar to backup the required directory, that  containing the files with VM’s details.

On the older ESXi server I run command tar -cvf /path_to files/directory.

Then copy file.tar to new ESXi using scp.

I then run command tar -xvf on the new ESXi with no errors. When I try and start the VM up on new ESXi the error appears.

I have used the same method for other VM between the 2 same ESXi servers with no problems, but fail to see the difference between a working VM and one the fails.

Also if I try and edit the settings of the VM that fails, I get an error Unable to access file [dev_disk] VM_name/vm_name_0-000007.vmdk even though the file is there in the directory with the same permissions as a working VM.

Any suggestions would be welcome as I am new to the VM world

[daphnissov]

ESXi is not linux and traditional tools such as `tar` and `scp` shouldn't be used with virtual machines. In order to reliably backup and restore VMs, you really need a tool designed to do that. Veeam has a community edition, for example, which appears to be a VMTN favorite.

[hammer1972]

Thank you, point taken that it is not Linux, like I said new to VM world and it kinda looked Linux like to me. Both tar and scp are included in the preloaded build of ESXi. Surley these commands can be used?

Also the method works 60% of the time which is the confusing part.

Will check out the recommended tools in the meantime.