VMware vSphere

Hi I'm trying to migrate a VM from a ESXi host on version 6 to a new ESXi host on version 7.  For some reasons there are some issues with getting it started up.  Here are what I have done and the errors I encountered along the way.  Any ideas on how to fix this would be appreciated.

Step 1 - SCP / Register

This is how it looks like after the copy.  After registering on the new host it complains to not able to find the vmdks.  Looking at the content of the vmx it was apparent that the vmx file was using file names with 000001.vmdk suffix which was wrong.  Not sure how the 000001 got there.

Step 2 - Update to the correct vmdk file names

After updating the vmx file to match the disk name it looks like this.

Step 3 - Start Again

This time it complained to not able to enumerate disk.  Not sure what this means.

Step 4 - Try Starting On Old Host

At this point I went back to the original host, re-register the machine, started but was given the same error about not being able to find the 00001.vmdk disks.  So I edited the vmx file like above, and attempted to start but was given an error that the configuration is invalid.

And following is what I can see towards the end of the log.

Step 5 - Try Again On New Host

I was giving it a try again on the new host first by deleting the files, re-copying from the old host, updating the vmdk names in the vmx files, registering the machine but by now it's giving me a cryptic name with an Invalid status despite the register was successful.

I can't tell you why the snapshot (the 000001.vmdk files) is missing, but the file names that belong into the .vmx file, are the .vmdk descriptor file, rather than the data (flat) files.

Try:

scsi0:0.fileName = "GNS3 - 2.2.3.vmdk"
scsi0:1.fileName = "GNS3 - 2.2.3_1.vmdk"

André

  for the info and guidance.  I can see I should be pointing to the vmdk descriptor files from the vmx file, and not the -flat.vmdk flat files.

The reference shared by  is helpful and I did go through the commands to generate the temp vmdk descriptor files but didn't rename them to match the correct names, as the actual vmdk descriptor files were already there.  It's good to know that there is a process to recover this if required.

I did update the vmx file to point to the original vmdk descriptor files, but still am seeing the following.  I'm not sure if it's related but the very first time when I registered this VM on the new host it was successfully done with a proper name and at least I was able to start it, just that it was complaining about not being able to find disk, etc.  Now it appears that even just registering the VM again, after having de-registering it, doesn't work.  I also have deleted the files on the new host and re-copied them from the old host, after having started it again un-successfully on the old host.  I haven't tried updating the vmx file on the old host to point to the correct vmdk descriptor (non-flat) files yet as I thought it must be something we can resolve on the new host.  Any ideas on what I need to do to register the VM on the new host correctly?

What may resolve that issue is to do some cleanup first, i.e. unregister (not delete) the VM from the inventory. After that register the .vmx with the fixed .vmdk file names again.

André

Just did it again and it works.  Found out I didn't completely update the vmx file to have the second vmdk fileName pointing to the non flat file.  Thanks everyone for having helped!

Hi,

you could check the content of the vmdk descriptor file if it points to the correct path of the -flat.vmdk file.

imho there seems to be a mismatch.

If there is any mismatch try to fix it. Here is described how to create a .vmdk descriptor file from scratch: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1002511?lang=en_us

May you could post the vmdk descriptor content here aswell.

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