One VM that will not convert to thin

[TimO201110141]

We are migrating VM's from a 3.5 ESX server to ESXi 4.1.

The systems range from W2k server to 2008R2 and during migration (cold migration), we convert the disks to thin provisioning.

All systems converted correctly with the exception of one XP SP3 VM - single 25GB VMDK which remains at full size/allocation.

The process used:

Delete all temporary files, delete the disk swap file, defrag with PerfectDisk set for contig free space and the boot option to optimize the MFT, run sdelete -c and then migrate. I have also tried using the VMTools option 'Shrink' option just prior to migration. I have repeated the process 3 times (going back to thick, re-running everything and migrating to another datastore) all with the same results.

Even though the system has less than 10GB used, and PerfectDisk shows contiguous freespace, the resulting VMDK is full size (25GB).

This process has worked for other systems, including XP.

Any suggestions on what else I might try?

[vmroyale]

Hello and welcome to the forums.

Note: This thread was moved from the VMware ESXi 4 forum to the Converter forum.

Convert it and resize the disk to 10GB and chose thin.  Then extend it to the desired size, once the conversion is complete.

Good Luck!

[TimO201110141]

Thanks, I will give that a try.

[continuum]

can'y you use vmkfstools instead of Converter ? - thats way more reliable and the resulting format can be selected

[TimO201110141]

I have tried the convertor, CLI and VIC - I would guess they all use the same API for a cold migration - but, results were the same regardless.

[TimO201110141]

Using converter worked - I wasn't aware it provided the option to not only resize the VMDK down, but to also move out the swap file.

Being an XP OS, I then had to use GParted to resize the partition, but a simple enough task as well.

Thanks again for the help.