I can not clone my VM

[Xironet]

Hi,

I am very new to the world of VMware. I setup a host, installed ESxi 5.1, and then from a second PC connected to my host using VM client.

Then installed server2008 and now I want to clone this VM so that I can create a virtual network in order to practice for my Microsoft exam. The help files suggest that I can right click on the VM and select clone. The problem is, I do NOT have this option when I right click, so what am I supposed to do? any idea anyone please.

Many thanks for your help in advance.

Regards,

Hamid

[Karthic Kumar]

Hi Xironet,

Welcome to VMware communities !!!.

You will get clone option only when you add ESXI host to a vCenter.

Please try this.

You can do the following:

1)  Create your new VM

2)  Edit the VM and delete the virtual HD that was added

3)  run vmkfstools -i  /source_path/source.vmdk / dest_path/dest.vmdk

4)  Edit the VM and add a new virtual HD - use an existing VMDK file.

5)  Power on your VM and run sysprep, etc.

The reason for creating the VM first is to get all the VM's files into one folder.  If you create a folder first, then copy the VMDK and then create the new VM,  you'll end up with 2 folders:  NEW_VM and NEW_VM_01.

[Xironet]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. Regarding point #3 (run vmkfstools -i  /source_path/source.vmdk / dest_path/dest.vmdk) that you mentioned, where do I run this command? what is the source path, am I supposed to find the actual path or just copy this path as you have written? Same question about dest_path.

Sorry if it sounds stupid, as I said, I am very new to this.

Many thanks

Hamid

[Karthic Kumar]

HI Xironet,

Question How to Run command

point #3 vmkfstools -i  /source_path/source.vmdk / dest_path/dest.vmdk

Answer:

- Enable SSH on the ESX host

      - Go to Configuration TAB of the ESX host via vSphere-Client

      - Go to Security Profile Under Software

      - Start SSH services

- Login to ESX host via PUTTY application

- Change to VM working Directory

- cd /vmfs/volumes/datastorename/vmname

- lets say for example your VMname is win2003r2 then /vmfs/volues/datastore/win2003r2/

- run vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/datastore/win2003r2/win2003rw.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/datastore/newvmfolder/newvmname.vmdk

- This step will create clone of the DISK

All the best.

[Xironet]

Hi,

I tried the method you suggested. But the is a problem, when I run the command in the putty, i get an error. from VM client i noticed that my datastorename is in fact datrastore1, so I tried twodifferent ways but none works. I took snap shot of my screen which i attached to this message.

By the way, is it not possible to create an iso file of my vm and then install it as a new vm? if so,  how is it done?

thank you very much for your help.

regards,

Hamid

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community - Cloning is a feature of vCenter- what you can do is copy the directory contain the files that make up your VM or you can use VMware converter to create a new copy -

[Xironet]

Hi,

Thank you for your response. Where should I look for the folder containing my VM files? Also, how do I get hold of this converter that you suggest.

Thank you.

Hamid

[weinstein5]

You can use the datastore browser that is a feature of the vSphere client =

VMware COnverter can be downloaded from here - https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=converter - it is free

[ch1ta]

Additionally, if you’re eager to find a way for cloning your Virtual Machine, you can utilize Veeam Backup and Replication with the VeaamZIP functionality.

VeeamZIP is similar to full VM backup. Nevertheless, when you perform backup with VeeamZIP, there is no need to configure a backup job and schedule it; instead, the backup process for selected VMs can be started immediately.

In other words, you can quickly perform backup of one or several VMs with VeeamZIP and then restore it to a given location.

Please, be aware that this feature is available in Veeam Backup and Replication Free Edition.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[Xironet]

Hello to Everyone,

Thank you to all who replied to my problem which has now been sorted. However, I have another problem.

Imagine I have a 1TB SATA hard drive, I have installed ESXi 5 and several Server 2008 with no problem. I then wanted to install Windows 7, XP etc to create my client-server network. During the installation of 7, the Windows crashes with blue screen. This also happened on XP installation. I realised that I needed SATA driver for my motherboard which is a GA-945GCM-S2L from Gigabyte. They do provide SATA driver only for XP but not for 7. I contacted them about the problem and asked them if they could provide me with SATA driver for 7.

They argued that ESXi5 only supports SATA ICH9 chipset while my motherboard only supports SATA ICH7 which is an Intel chipset.

Is there anyway around this? Is there any other version of ESXi which does support ICH7 (perhaps older versions).

Any help will be much appreciated.

Regards,

Hamid

[Xironet]

Hi every one,

I am writing to inform anyone who may have a similar problem to mine. After a month struggling to install Windows 7, being told it is ICH problem etc. It became clear that something was wrong with my 1TB Samsung hard drive. I took it back and replaced it with a 1TB Toshiba version and the problem gone.

Thank you to all who replied to me help request.

Hamid