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Showing posts from February, 2018

Could not open virtual machine – vmx is not a valid virtual machine configuration file

http://blog.laksha.net/2009/10/vmx-is-not-valid-virtual-machine.html

SharesFacebookTwitterGoogle+PinterestEmailSumoMe VMware ESX – “Unable to access a file since it is locked

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After transferring and/or trying to restart a VM in ESX you may be presented with the error message “Unable to access a file since it is locked”. Now what you need to do is work out what is actually locking this file and then (unsurprisingly) find a way to unlock it. Generally the problem will be caused by one of three things. 1.  Process Lock:  There is a process on the ESX server that still has hold of a file(s) used by the VM.  This is one of the most common causes.  To resolve this there have been a couple of good VMware Forum postings  here  and  here  that have been consolidated to  this useful posting over  at  GabesVirtualWorld.com   (*Note: It is worth checking out the comment by Kent at the bottom of the posting).  Also, check out Tecumseh’s posting  here . 2.  Disk Naming Conflict:  Two or more disks with the same VMDK name. This can be caused by another disk with the same VMDK file name being referenced by the VM.  This may have occurred due to a VM move where the

VMware ESX – How to easily recreate a missing or corrupt VMX file.

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VMware ESX – How to easily recreate a missing or corrupt VMX file. by  Simon Seagrave   32 Comments Do you have a VM that is missing its VMX file or maybe the VM’s VMX file has corrupted? Now you could manually recreate a missing or corrupt VMX file (restoring one from a backup would be the best solution) but a quick and easy way for recreating it is to create a new VM within the VMware Infrastructure Client (VIC) or via CLI/RCLI.  During the creation process point the new VM’s drives to the existing disk (VMDK) files of the server with the corrupt/missing VMX file. Below are the basic steps for doing this via the VMware Infrastructure Client interface. Before beginning to start the process to recreate the VMX file, if it exists, remove the VM from the VMware Infrastructure Clients inventory list (right click on the VM and select ‘Remove from Inventory’). Also if you are trying to replace a corrupted VMX file then rename (preferable option) or delete the offending VMX f

Running virtual machine is inaccessible and has missing configuration files (2006648)

Symptoms A running virtual machine shows as inaccessible in vCenter Server A running virtual machine shows as Unknown when vSphere Client is connected directly to the host. A running virtual machine is missing the .vmx file on the datastore but may have other related files in the virtual machine directory. You can remote into the virtual machine and it is still up and running. Cause This issue occurs if the .vmx file of a running virtual machine has been deleted. Resolution To resolve this issue, recreate the virtual machine. To recreate the virtual machine: Install VMware Standalone Converter on the running virtual machine. To download VMware Converter Standalone, see the  VMware Download Center . Perform a V2V conversion and create a new virtual machine, which creates all of the necessary configuration files. Log in to the newly converted virtual machine and reboot. If the conversion was successful, the virtual machine boots properly. If not, re-try the

Unable to Start VM in ESXi 6.5

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/567780

Some Useful Storage Commands

Command to view all LUNs presented to a host #esxcfg-scsidevs -c And to check about a specific LUN, #esxcfg-scsidevs -c | grep  naa.id To find the unique identifier of the LUN,  you may run this command: # esxcfg-scsidevs -m To find associated datastore using a LUN id #esxcfg-scsidevs -m|grep  naa.id To get a list of RDM disks, you may run following command , #find /vmfs/volumes/ -type f -name ‘*.vmdk’ -size -1024k -exec grep -l ‘^createType=.*RawDeviceMap’ {} \; > /Datastore123/ rdmsluns.txt   This command will save the list of all RDM disk to a text file  rdmluns.txt  and save it to Datastore123. Now Run following command to find the associated LUNs, #for i in `cat /tmp/ rdmsluns.txt `; do vmkfstools -q $i; done This command will give you the  vml.id  of rdm luns, Now use following cmd to map  vml.id  to  naa.id #ls -luth /dev/disks/ |grep  vml.id     in output of this command you will get LUN id/ naa.id . To mark an RDM device as perennially reserved

Windows Server: How to Repair the Boot Files in Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2 if the Server Won’t Boot

There are a number of possible causes for the failure of a server to boot into Windows. This article deals with a problem in the boot files and demonstrates how to repair them. Solution IMPORTANT: Drive Letters Change in WinRE When booting to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), the drive letters are assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis. For example, the C: drive in Windows will often have a different letter in WinRE. The DiskPart utility can be used to keep track of the drives and what is stored on them. Restoring Boot Files   Note:  If there is no System Reserved partition. It is okay to select the drive containing the Windows folder . First Partition: 100 MB System Reserved (No drive letter) Second Partition: 60 GB (C:) OS Third Partition:1.5 TB (D:) Data DVD Drive: E:   Note:  The DVD drive’s letter changes from E: to F: in WinRE. Boot to the Windows Server DVD. Open the command prompt. Server 2008 R2 If no driver is needed, press Shift-F10 to o

VM grayed out as disconnected, inaccessible, orphaned or invalid

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VM grayed out as disconnected, inaccessible, orphaned or invalid Posted by  fgrehl  on January 17, 2014 Leave a comment  (1) Go to comments Short post on different connectivity states of a virtual machine and how to fix them. disconnected A virtual machine is marked as disconnected when the vCenter has lost communication to the ESXi host where the virtual machine is running. The host is marked as not responding. This state is usually caused by a host that has been crashed. Other reasons could be network issues or problems with the vpxa service running on the host. In this state vSphere HA would usually comes into play and tries to restart the virtual machine on another host in the cluster. You can quickly reproduce that state by stopping vpxa (~ # /etc/init.d/vpxa stop) inaccessible A virtual machine is marked as inaccessible when the host can no longer access the virtual machine configuration (.vmx) file. That state can be caused by problems with the storage arr

Cannot add VMFS datastore to ESXi host

Cannot add VMFS datastore to ESXi host March 15, 2017   Amit Arora   ESX5.x ISSUE “ Keep existing signature ” and “ Assign a new signature ” is grayed  out and only option is “ Format the disk ” is available while adding a VMFS Datastore to ESXi host in Cluster. CAUSE This issue is related to Non-Persistent Mount Volume between hosts in Cluster. SOLUTION First find the volume which are Non-Persistent by running below command on ESXi Host. #esxcfg-volume -l By running this you can find the volumes and names. To persistently mount the volume use, “esxcfg-volume -M” followed by either the UUID or the name of the volume #esxcfg-volume -M TEMPDATASTORE After running above commands then rescan storage on hosts and you will see the datastore listed.

Conversion of Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk by VMware Converter Too

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Conversion of Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk by VMware Converter Too First Power off your Source Virtual Machine and open VMware Converter tool. Select Radio button on Source Type “Powered Off ” & choose VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine in drop down list. Mention your Source vCenter/Host name to connect it. Select the location of destination server in left pane and server name in right and click on next. Select the Destination vCenter/Host where new VM needs to be presented and click next. Enter the new machine name which should be different from original one in destination Virtual machine wizard and click next. Change the hardware version if you want and click next. Click Edit on Data to Copy section. Now choose “Select Volumes to Copy” in drop down list of Data Copy Type. You can convert your Virtual disk from Thick to Thin as by default it select Thick type and click next. Review the wizard and finish it. Once conversion will be completed you