VMware vSphere

 View Only

  • 1.  VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 05:28 PM

    I just upgraded to VmWare ESXI 5 from 4.1  Everything seemed to go  smoothly except for one VM which I run on a NAS.  It showed up as an  unidentified VM.  I removed it from inventory and went to the datastore  and re-added it.  Now when I try to boot up I get the following error:

    Reason: The system cannot find the file specified.

Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/a5382f67-077d12c4/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. 

VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk "/vmfs/volumes/a5382f67-077d12c4/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX.vmdk". Verify the path is valid and try again.

    I have not touched any of the files in this VM and it was working until the upgrade.  Any clue what to do?  Thanks!


  • 2.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 06:25 PM

    Did you try to create a new VM and added this disk?

    Regards,

    Mario



  • 3.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 06:28 PM

    Yes I did with the same exact result.



  • 4.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 06:29 PM

    This  is caused because ESXi cant see the SAN, try restarting management network and ping the SAN from the host



  • 5.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 06:52 PM

    Check whether the NFS is accessable or not. make sure your able to mount to any other OS/server and check the vmdk file.

    Thanks



  • 6.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 08:08 PM

    I am able to ping the NAS and can access the datastore from my computer.  One thing to note is that when I look at the vmdk file it looks small, like 1 KB but then the provisioned size is large.  Is tha normal.

    Also, the path its looking for is /vmfs/volumes/a5382f67-077d12c4/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX

    Where does that random number after volumes come from? Is it possible that that changed?  How do I navigate that?  Thanks!



  • 7.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 08:23 PM

    I found the directory via ssh but got this error when I tried to go to it.  I can only assume it is pointing to the NAS:


    -ash: cd: can't cd to Windows



  • 8.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 08:41 PM

    ok I was able to find the directory and indeed the file is there.  see attached screen shot.  What is concerning to me is that windows is showing the vmdk file as only being 1 KB.  Could that be the problem?  I don't know how all of the data would just disapper.



  • 9.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 09:41 PM

    you should also have

    "/vmfs/volumes/a5382f67-077d12c4/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX/Windows 2008 R2 - LBMX-flat.vmdk"


    the name-flat.vmdk is the one that actually stores the data - the 1kb small vmdk is only a description

    flat.vmdks are only visible with tools like winscp, ssh ....

    Datastorebrowser does not display  vmdk-files correctly



  • 10.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 11:05 PM

    Thanks for your help everyone.  I think this file is a goner.  I dont know how but I guess somehow it must have gotten deleted in the upgrade to exsi 5.



  • 11.  RE: VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk

    Posted Apr 03, 2012 06:57 PM

    does the file specified exist ?

    if the vmdk is referenced with an absolute path in the vmx-file that path may no longer exist