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speks
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Contributor

unable to extend a .vmdk - Esxi 6.7 U1

Hi Folks,

Wonder if anyone can help - This issue has been driving me nuts for a while  - I have imported a .vmdk and attached to new Virtual machine.

When I try to reconfigure, I get the following error 'Enter a disk size which is larger than its original capacity'

So, I increase the size of the disk in the GUI.. click save and then get another error message

"Failed to reconfigure virtual machine xxx-yyy. Invalid operation for device '3"

The only Solution online points to snapshots - I don't have any.  And I had this issue with running ESXi 6.5 as well.

Any ideas on how to get around this will be greatly appreciated - This a homelab btw.

Thanks!

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Welcome to the Community,

from where (which application) did you import the .vmdk file(s)?

First, I'd like to find out whether the .vmdk has a supported format.

If you are familiar with the ESXi host's command line, please run ls -lisa in the VM's folder, and post the results.

Btw. what type of virtual disk is it? SCSI, SATA, or IDE? Note that resizing IDE disks from the vSphere Client is not supported.

André

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speks
Contributor
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Hi Andre

Many Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

.vmdk file started life as an .img file - converted to .vmdk using StarWind V2V Image Converter and vmkfstools used to make sure its converted to an ESXi supported .vmdk.

ls -lhisa

total 978048

381682116    128 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       72.0K Apr 14 19:25 .

      4   1024 drwxr-xr-t    1 root     root       76.0K Apr 14 18:58 ..

62914564 976896 -rw-------    1 root     root      953.7M Apr 14 19:23 router-flat.vmdk

67108868      0 -rw-------    1 root     root         466 Apr 14 19:23 router.vmdk

50331652      0 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root           0 Apr 14 18:56 test-bsd.vmsd

37748740      0 -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        2.0K Apr 14 19:25 test-bsd.vmx

It is a SCSI virtual Disk. Yes, I do know IDE disk resizing is not supported... Let me know if you need any further info...

Thanks!

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Can you please attach the "router.vmdk" as well as the "test-bsd.vmx" to a reply post?

One of those files should contain hints on what's causing this issue.


André

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speks
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Andre

Files attached.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

The virtual hardware is set to a very old version in the vmdk-file.

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
It may help if you delete that line / or update it to the really used version.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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speks
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Continuum

I changed the ddb.virtualHWVersion to 13 as that seems to be in line with the other VMs.

Unfortunately, the issue persists...:smileycry:

Thanks again

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

I'm unable to reproduce the issue with a newly created virtual disk, and your descriptor file. Resizing worked flawlessly for me.

StarWind V2V Image Converter and vmkfstools used to make sure its converted to an ESXi supported .vmdk.

Can you provide some more details please:

  • what was the source, i.e. which virtualization product, which file format?
  • which target format did you select for the StarWind V2V conversion?
  • which vmkfstools command did you use to convert the virtual disk file?
  • how do the flat file's first few bytes look like?
    hexdump -n 16 -C router-flat.vmdk

André

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speks
Contributor
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Hi Andre

* File source:https://sourceforge.net/projects/bsdrp/files/BSD_Router_Project/1.92/amd64/BSDRP-1.92-full-amd64-ser...

* In Starwind V2V Converter - I picked Local file (location of .img file) and  Location of destination image Remote VMware ESXi Server

* Converted using vmkfstools -i <.vmdk>  <new.vmdk>  (tried both -d thin and thick options)

* 00000000  fc 31 c0 8e c0 8e d8 8e  d0 bc 00 7c 89 e6 bf 00  |.1.........|....|

  00000010

Thanks again.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

The img you downloaded already is a perfect thick  flat.vmdk.
Converting it is like the attempt to paint a green wall green ...
Maybe the partitions are the reasons for the failure ?
The vmdk has 4 partitions :
450 mb unknown
450 mb unknown
15 mb UFS

15 mb UFS
Which partition do you want to resize ?


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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speks
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks - Was not even aware the .vmdk has partitions on it.

I have tried to extend the disk using vmfstools to 2G but, its still showing up 1G on the GUI... and not saving the change when I increase the disk to 2G.

At this point I might need to seek an alternative VM.. but, thanks all for your help thus far.

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Wolken
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Enthusiast

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

The link you provided is no help at all for the problem discussed here.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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