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How to open a recovered server with RAID using VMWare Player

I received a portable drive with files recovered from a Dell server. The server was configured with the OS on a RAID 1 array (as C:) and the apps/ data on a RAID 10 array (as D: - F:).

According to the guy who recovered the data (I cannot contact him now, hence this post), I should be able to turn on the recovered computer as a VM within VMware Player. That's not working.

According to his instructions, when I initially select the servername.vmx file, I should get a prompt to browse to the RAID file in a different folder. However, that doesn't happen. When I open VMware Player (using Win8 as the host), I can browse to the primary folder, but I never get an option to browse to the RAID file.

Here are his instructions:
"Please be aware that the Raid is included in the \\VM\DD folder and needs to be mapped.
Please load up VM and open vm file \\VM\servername\servername.vmx
It will request RAID File and please point to \VM\DD\servername-0.vmdk"

Here's what the folder structure looks like on the portable drive (there are more files than noted, but these are the highlights):

VM
|
-servername
-servername.vmx
-servername.vmdk (1kb)
-servername.vmsd
- servername-flat.vmdk (143 GB)
- servername.vmxf (1kb)
- servername-0-000001.vdmk (349 MB)
- servername-0-000002.vdmk (144 MB)
- servername-0-000003.vdmk (86 MB)
- servername-0-000004.vdmk (35 MB)
- servername-000001.vdmk (1.3 GB)
- servername-000002.vdmk (1 GB)
- servername-000003.vdmk (0.5 GB)
- servername-000004.vdmk (0.017 GB)
- plus snapshots, logs, gz, one .vmem, and one .vmss file

-DD
-servername-0.vmdk (1K)
-RAID.001 (286 GB)

I don't have any experience with VMware, and my original intent was to eventually convert the vdmk file to a .vhd file with Starwind. However, I can't figure out how to do the RAID mapping just to get started.

I attached the vmx file. The only thing that looks a bit odd is the search path (the J: drive is valid, but the referenced E: drive is not).

Anyhow, I expected to be prompted to search for the RAID configuration file, but that isn't happening.

Three questions:
1. How to I view this recovered server within VMware Player?
2. Once I get that working, what's the best strategy to convert this to a Hyper-V vhd format?

Thanks in advance.

David

Is that all the instructions he/she gave you? Surely there is more. Not enough information w/o knowing how the physical RAID was set up to begin with, and what they did.

Did they reconstruct a bootable image recovery and turn it into a VM? If not, please elaborate.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

if this had been completed correctly, you SHOULD just be able to open the VMX file, and the Virtual Machine should start.

The VMX file would then have the correct entries to "load" the virtual disks.

RAID.001 is NOT a VMware Virtual disk, it also concerns me that the disks you have been give, both virtual disks, have four snapshots also associated or maynot be associated with the virtual machine disks.

Moving a virtual; machine with snapshots attached is not recommended, because often, the parent and snapshot disks get disassociated with the export/copy.

ovidbailey

ASKER

Yeah, that's all I have for instructions.

The server was configured with the OS on a RAID 1 array (as C:) and the apps/ data on a RAID 10 array (as D: - F:).

I did built the original array; it was from a Dell 2850.

I had asked for a single (or two) vhd or vdmk file from which I could load as VM's, but that's not what I got.

Thanks.

ovidbailey

ASKER

hanccocka, it looks like the \vm\dd\servername.vmdk file is pointing to the RAID.001 file. Here's the vmdk contents:

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="windows-1252"
CID=19e9baf7
parentCID=ffffffff
isNativeSnapshot="no"
createType="monolithicFlat"

# Extent description
RW 573498960 FLAT "RAID.001" 0

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "8"
ddb.longContentID = "b0a3449b305e92072afea03919e9baf7"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9c 8a be 22 ab-50 20 ad 77 80 a0 c1 66"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "35698"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.adapterType = "ide"

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

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ovidbailey

ASKER

OK, that worked. I manually added a hard disk by pointing to the location of the VMDK file that referenced the RAID, and it works. At the end of the day, I think it was a path problem; I had copied everything over to a different drive.

I should be able to use StarWind now to convert this to a .vhd file.

Thanks.