VMware Cloud Community
KTA101
Contributor
Contributor

Unable to cold migrate VM from one LUN to another....

I am trying to migrate a VM of it's existing LUN onto a newly presented LUN. We are running VC 2.0.2 and ESX 3.0.1. I ran a migrate on the same server yesterday fine, but today, no joy, I tried several times but got the same message every time when it reached 12%

"The virtual disk is either corrupted or not a supported format"

I am not to sure this is an accurate message as the VM works fine located where it is at the moment, and I would have thought if it was not a supported format then it wouldn't work at all.

I am wondering if anyone else might have suffered the same and found a solution. I am going to get a new LUN presented on Monday, I will try to migrate the VM to this, just in case it is an issue with the LUN.

Reply
0 Kudos
9 Replies
esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

How big is the VM's vmdk files? If it is larger then 256GB your VMFS volume need to be formatted with at least a 2MB block size. The default 1MB block size only supports up to 256GB. Also make sure you have enough space on the destination volume and make sure your LUN numbers are presented identically to each ESX host.

Message was edited by:

esiebert7625

Reply
0 Kudos
KTA101
Contributor
Contributor

The total size is just under 100GB, same size as the one I migrated yesterday. The one yesterday went through a treat, but today, it just don't want to play ball.

The destination is large enough and it is staying on the same ESX server, just moving to a new LUN.

Reply
0 Kudos
surferdave
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

See if this document may shed some light on the problem:

download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2005/sln521.pdf

What is the exact error message you are receiving?

Reply
0 Kudos
KTA101
Contributor
Contributor

"The virtual disk is either corrupted or not a supported format" is the full message that pops up, nothing else, when I look under "Tasks & Events" it just says the same.

Reply
0 Kudos
surferdave
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The latest build of ESX was just released on August 1. Basically, it is a roll up the patches since that last build. I would load the latest version and see if the problem still occurs.

Reply
0 Kudos
KTA101
Contributor
Contributor

I have scheduled the upgrade in for early next week, but they want me to try and migrate all the VMs to new LUNs, it's a long, long, long story but we are going through a few changes on the SAN that require moving things around.

Thing that puzzles me is that it worked yesterday, same ESX server just a different LUN.

Reply
0 Kudos
esiebert7625
Immortal
Immortal

You might try looking at the ESX logs to see if there is more detailed errors.

• You can check several log files on the ESX server based on the problem you are experiencing, these include:

o Vmkernel - /var/log/vmkernel – records activities related to the virtual machines and ESX server

o Vmkernel Warnings - /var/log/vmkwarning – records activities with the virtual machines

o Vmkernel Summary - /var/log/vmksummary - Used to determine uptime and availability statistics for ESX Server; human-readable summary found in /var/log/vmksummary.txt

o ESX Server host agent log - /var/log/vmware/hostd.log - Contains information on the agent that manages and configures the ESX Server host and its virtual machines (Search the file date/time stamps to find the log file it is currently outputting to.)

o Service Console - /var/log/messages - Contain all general log messages used to troubleshoot virtual machines or ESX Server

o Web Access - /var/log/vmware/webAccess - Records information on Web-based access to ESX Server

o Authentication log - /var/log/secure - Contains records of connections that require authentication, such as VMware daemons and actions initiated by the xinetd daemon.

o VirtualCenter agent - /var/log/vmware/vpx - Contains information on the agent that communicates with VirtualCenter

o Virtual Machines - The same directory as the affected virtual machine’s configuration files; named vmware.log - Contain information when a virtual machine crashes or ends abnormally

You could also use VMware Converter or vmkfstools to move the VM's to different storage.

Reply
0 Kudos
bertdb
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

the VMs are "real" ESX3 VMs, not legacy ESX2 VMs ?

does this VM have snapshots ?

Reply
0 Kudos
KTA101
Contributor
Contributor

I have just been speaking to the SAN guys, who are also a dab hand when it comes to Linux, and they have decided to go down the route of compressing the VM into a TAR, then moving it via VMKFSTOOLS to the required LUN.

Thanks for all your help on this one. Smiley Happy

Reply
0 Kudos