Installation guide

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VMware ESX Server Administration Guide

Path Name Failures When Importing GSX Server Virtual Machines

Plain disks used with virtual machines created in GSX Server may contain disk file

names that ESX Server cannot translate. Versions 2.5 and earlier of GSX Server used

absolute path names to identify disk files when creating plain disks. Not all plain disks

created with earlier versions of GSX Server contain path names preventing ESX Server

from importing them. If you attempt to import a plain disk with vmkfstools and

ESX Server displays:

DiskLib_Open() failed. No such file or directory (131591)

you should check the path name in the plain disk.

Note: This problem applies only to plain disks. Virtual and raw disks created in GSX

Server should import correctly using vmkfstools.

Open the plain disk descriptor (.pln) file and locate the path name to the disk file. If

the path name refers outside the directory containing the descriptor file, you must

change it. For example, if the path name is:

C:\user\vmware\VMs\W2KServSP3\Win2KSv1.dat

ESX Server cannot translate the GSX Server path name to locate the plain disk data

(.dat) file.

You can repair the plain disk by locating the data file in the same directory as the

descriptor file and changing the path name to refer to the data file directly. In this

example, edit the descriptor file to remove the absolute path from the file name:

Win2KSv1.dat

and save the file. Now if you import the plain file:

$ vmkfstools -i Win2KSv1.pln vmhba0:0:2:Win2KSv1.dsk

the command locates Win2KSv1.dat in the same directory and imports it into the

specified ESX Server virtual disk file.

Importing a GSX Server or Workstation Virtual Machine

Follow these steps to import a virtual machine to VMware ESX Server.

1. Be sure you have access to the files in the directory that holds the source virtual

machine. You may be able to mount the source location, or you may prefer to

FTP or copy the files to a temporary folder on the service console.

If you are not sure where the source files are, open the virtual machine in the

VMware product you used to create it, open the Configuration Editor (Settings >

Configuration Editor). On a Windows host, click the name of the drive you want

to migrate. In the Disk file section, click Choose to see the location information.