Hypervisor 6.0.0 bld 3620759 no option to convert VMFS3 to VMFS5

[MarkGuy]

First let me state that I absolutely, positively, and undeniably hate the web client. That would be okay if I could do everything in the vSphere Client but no, can't do that. New features apparently get added to the terrible Web Client. Ugh.

Here's the actually issue I'm having. I added a new SATA drive from and older ESXi (free) server which is a VMFS3 file system. According to the 6.0.0 docs, I should be able to use the awful Web Client, right click on the Datastore (It has no "Global Inventory LIsts", and viola! The option to upgrade is supposed to be one of the choices. Um, no. It's not. Doesn't matter if the server is in Maintenance mode or not, or if the VMFS3 datastore is mounted or unmounted, in Maintenance mode or not. The only options listed are: Rename, Increase Capacity, Unmount, Browse and Register a VM.

There are no KB articles within the last few years for VMFS3. The 6.0.0 ESXi documentation about Upgrading a VMFS3 Datastore to VMFS5 is flat out wrong, at least for my free "Hypervisor".

No "Upgrade" in sight. So what hoops do I now have to jump through to upgrade that VMFS3 datastore?

Oh, and wait. It's 2016 and there's still no sound support? Yes, I'm using a consumer MB with a RealTek auto chip but hey, c'mon. There should be at least basic, support for beeps from the VMs or something. It's an X99 system with a Broadwell-E processor.

Sorry, just need to get a few things off my chest. LOL.

Thanks,

Mark

[Mattallford]

Hey Mark,

First let me state that I absolutely, positively, and undeniably hate the web client. That would be okay if I could do everything in the vSphere Client but no, can't do that. New features apparently get added to the terrible Web Client. Ugh.

While you won't get a lot of arguments, and I know this may not be of immediate help, if you haven't already it might be worth checking out the HTML5 web client fling that has been released -vSphere HTML5 Web Client. VMware are working on getting a supported version shipped with the next version of vSphere.

Can you send us through a screenshot of the options you receive when you right click on the datastore? Also, what version of vCenter Server are you running?

Here are some of the options I get, notice the greyed out 'Upgrade to VMFS-5...'. I can't upgrade because this is already VMFS5.

Another thing to try would be to upgrade the datastore using esxcli on the ESXi host;

esxcli storage vmfs upgrade -l Datastore

Where 'Datastore' is the actual name of your datastore, case sensitive. If the upgrade fails, you may get some more information here as to why.

Let us know how you go.

Cheers, Matt.

[MarkGuy · Accepted solution]

Thank Matt.

I tried a different route. I attached the drive to a Dell Precision T3600 workstation that I'm looking at making into my main server since it has an Xeon E5. Using just the drive from the old ESXi 4.1, I did a 6.0.0 install using the Dell custom install A00. I told the install to keep the datastore and had it do a full 6.0 install since there isn't an upgrade path per se from a 4.1 system. The upgrade was perfect, and it also told me that I had a VMFS 3 datastore that needed to be upgraded.

When I connected to the server's IP address, I noticed that in using the Dell customized version, they wisely removed the atrocious Web Client. LOL. So I wasn't sure if I'd be able to upgrade the datastore. I downloaded and installed the vSphere Client 6 from the newly upgraded system, got signed in, and looked at the datastore. Sure enough, there was an option off to the very right side that said Upgrade to VMFS 5. I used that option to perform the upgrade from 3 to 5 and then went to look at the VMs that were supposed to be in that datastore.

Uh oh. When I clicked on the VMs tab, there was nothing there. Having been a long time reader of that Universal/Galactic classic "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" I recalled the sage words of the cover. DON'T PANIC. Very good advice. LOL.

I then realized I just needed to browse the newly upgraded datastore and add back each VM by right clicking on its VMX file and selecting "Add to Inventory". It worked perfectly for all but one machine's VMX file I'll need to look at further. I don't think it was ever a working VM. A very fast perusal of the file seemed okay but the system doesn't like something as it listed the file type as "file" and not "Virtual Machine". It's not anything critical so I'll just recreate it later.

I did run into one vexing problem that had me chasing my tail for a couple hours. I had searched the Net for a solution but never found one, so I thought I'd put it in here for someone's future reference.

When I initially tried to run the upgrade, it would error out with:

Error loading /s.v00

Compressed MD5: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Uncompressed MD5: (all zeros)

Fatal error: 10 (out of resources)

I'd read that sometimes VMware doesn't like Nvidia adapters so I tried an old PCI adapter I had but the system wouldn't recognize there was anything in that one PCI slot. I tried switching the Nvidia Quadro 600 with a very basic Nvidia 8400GS. No go.

Thinking maybe it was an upgrade/install problem, I used the disk from the working X99 system. It started booting up but then failed at that same spot with the same messages. So it apparently was not only an install/upgrade problem but also one that affecting a previously well running system as well.

Then I started digging into the Precision T3600's BIOS and came across two settings someone had changed. They didn't affect the Windows system that was running on that machine, but ESXi sure didn't like them.

PCI Busses had been changed from the default value of 64, to 128, the middle value.

PCI MMIO Size had been changed from the default of Small to Large.

I'd never seen those before and have no idea what they do but figured it couldn't hurt to set them back to the defaults. Turns out that was the problem! After resetting those two values back to their defaults, The previously installed system booted up and ran just fine. So I tried the Upgrade/Install of the 4.1 system to 6.0 again and it worked perfectly. Hopefully that will help someone in the future with that issue.

Mark