Manually Remove Disconnected VM when Host Unavailable

Today we have had major problems with one of our clusters. Thank fully at time of writing we have managed to restore most services. Howvever, we have a number of guest that have come disconnected. Unfortunatley we cannot remove these from the inventory as they still have a status of powered on. This is despite that actually physical host being powered down. Does anyone know how we can change the status and remove and re-add to the inventory everything I have seen points to the physical host being available to fix such an issue. Would appreciate anyone's wisdom.

Thanks

Graeme

VMware

Last Comment

GraemeTL

8/22/2022 - Mon

coolsport00

3/7/2011

I assume you're logging into vCenter with vSphere Client? Do the VMs show as 'not connected' if you log onto the ESXi host directly? You can remove a powered-on VM from Inventory in vCenter and it would still be powered on, because VMs are actually on a host, not on vCenter. Remove from Inventory/then re-add one of your less critical VMs to test, but I'm pretty confident that is the case. Oh, and to re-add, you need to go into the VM's folder, right-click on its .vmx file and select Add to Inventory.

~coolsport00

Danny McDaniel

3/7/2011

try restarting the management service on the hosts that these VM's are being reported as living on. If they still persist, then restart the VC server service.

bgoering

3/7/2011

You have what is known as orphaned vms - there is a kb article that addresses that: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1351&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&dialogID=7216361&stateId=1

Good Luck

Experts Exchange has (a) saved my job multiple times, (b) saved me hours, days, and even weeks of work, and often (c) makes me look like a superhero! This place is MAGIC!

Walt Forbes

GraemeTL

3/7/2011

ASKER

Hi all. The problem we have is that the host where the vms live is dead, therefore we cannot logon to the host to remove or change the guest status to powered off, to then remove the machine from inventory. These guests are part of a large cluster but we cannot migrate or anything as the physical host won't boot.

Danny McDaniel

3/7/2011

can you right-click on the dead host and choose 'disconnect'? if you can do that, then you can right-click and remove host. That will remove the VM's on it, too.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

bgoering

3/7/2011

THIS SOLUTION ONLY AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS.

View this solution by signing up for a free trial.

Members can start a 7-Day free trial and enjoy unlimited access to the platform.

See Pricing Options

Start Free Trial

GET A PERSONALIZED SOLUTION

Ask your own question & get feedback from real experts

Find out why thousands trust the EE community with their toughest problems.

GraemeTL