Moving a VM

[wapiti10]

I am trying to move one of my guests to a new host. This will be a new ESX Host and on a new SAN. I have already used scp to transfer all of the files including the vmx and vmdk files to the new datastore (new/different SAN) that is connected to the new host, however when I try to create a custom vm and I point to the vmdk file that I copied over, and try to start it up, I get "disk read error." is there a step that I forgot to perform? shouldn't this work?

Thanks,

Dallas

[Santhosh_vmware]

Hi,

It must work.If you are creating new vm ,you need not copy .vmx file.Try coping vmdk and flat vmdk file one more time.

regards

santhosh

Message was edited by: Santhosh_vmware

[taits]

You will need to edit the *.vmdk file to reflect the new location of the flat.vmdk file. Should work then.

[dkfbp]

If you are running virtual center, simply right click the VM - choose migrate then choose to migrate to the new host and relocate storage to the new SAN.

[sizarraga · Accepted solution]

If you have ESX Server Enterprise & Virtual Center you can use Converter to copy a VM

[wapiti10]

Even though there are other ways, Can you give me more detail on how to do this, not so much as a tutorial on editing files, but which lines to look at.

I vi'd into my *.vmdk file and I do not see a path for the *-Flat.vmdk file.

thanks,

Dallas

[RUG201110141]

I use dkfbp's choice all the time and it works great. I belive this option will move the machine via the service console nics of the ESX servers that you are moving the virtual machine from and to. There doesn't need to be any shared storage between the two hosts.