Sysprepped guest won't boot

[zenking]

We're running Vsphere 4.1 with ESXi hosts and an EQ SAN. I have a template for a Win2K8 R2 server that I've cloned several times with no problem. Yesterday, I updated Windows. Office, etc on the template and created a customized clone. After the new VM started, it ran through sysprep with no problem. When I rebooted, it gave the error "Can't find autocheck", then starts loading windows and immediately reboots.

Thinking it was corrupted, I cloned again, but had the same problem. I booted to the w2k8 iso and chose repair, but it said the disk with the OS was 0 kb Then I removed the vm from inventory, moved the 60 GB vmdk to a local DS and created a VM from the disk in case the problem was with my DS on the SAN. Same problem.

Any ideas? I just started googling for the autocheck error, but would appreciate any tips if you've seen this.

Oh, and I get errors when I try to download the log file from the DS, so that's hindering me a bit. Otherwise no problem copying files to and from DS.

Thanks.

Tim

[zenking]

Just managed to download the log file. The timestamps in the log seem to be about 4 hours ahead, so maybe it's a time sync issue on the hosts.

Actually, just checked and the host time is correct.

[iw123 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

This thread might be worth a look

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1805129

[zenking]

Thanks, IW. The KB article linked in the thread you sent seems to be doing the trick. I ran the disk part commands on the cloned vm and it's booting now. I'll fix my source vm per the kb (or update as soon as I can).