VM dynamic disk offline after migration using vmkfstools

[mark_a_k]

Hi, I have migrated 3 VMs to a development esx server using vmkfstools. I shutdown each VM before running vmkfstools. When i boot the VM on the dev ESX server one of the hard disks are missing on two of the vms. The missing disk is a dynamic disk and is offline. The disk appears in device manager! I have selected reactivate disk but no change. The third VM is fine and the configuration is almost identical to the other 2 VMs. Has anyone come across this issue and can you suggest a resolution? Thanks

[Texiwill]

Hello,

It appears you have not migrated all the VMDKs associated with the VM.

Best regards,

Edward

[mark_a_k]

I have migrated all VMDKs. The Virtual Machine Guest OS can see the disk in device manager.

[conyards]

I would agree with Texiwill, the error suggests that the Dynamic volume was made up of multiple VMDK files/Disks.

Do you have an export of the original 3 VMs VMX files, so that you could clarify that indeed all the VMDK files accociated with the VM have been copied.

Simon

[Texiwill]

Hello,

The OS running inside the VM once saw all the disks and therefore thinks they are all there, but since they show up as not writable the OS knows something is not right so gives you this error.

Look at the Configuration of your VM and determine how many VMDKs were involved. Make sure you have copied all the vmdks.

You will most likely need to re-hook them up to the VM as vmkfstools is NOT used to migrate/clone VMs without the possible need to edit the files afterwards. I suggest you look at the disk configurations using the VI Client and verify to where they point. THey could be pointing to non-existent paths. Or you can look at the .vmx and .vmdk files. Remember the -rdm.vmdk and -flat.vmdk are the actually data but the ones that end in .vmdk are metadata files showing where the disks actually reside.

Best regards,

Edward

[mark_a_k]

I have used vmkfstools -i option to copy the vmdk files again and i can now successfully use the disks. For some reason the initial copy became corrupt. Possibly because i was copying 6 vmdk files from a USB external disk to the ESX server at the same time. I can now access the disks!