Cloning/migrating a VM using vCenter can turn out to be quite tricky.

when you finish the ‘Clone Virtual Machine’ wizard and try to power on the new VM.

It might not start! I received this error: “Thin/TBZ disks cannot be opened in multiwriter mode”, and the new VM would not start.

After a bit of searching and fiddling around.

Right-click the VM and click ‘Edit Settings’ to bring up the Virtual Machine Properties dialog. Now change the SCSI Controller’s ‘SCSI Bus Sharing’ policy from ‘Virtual’ to ‘None’.

Now try to power on your virtual machine.  It will work fine.

 

OR

 

IF you want to enable Multiwriter mode, Please follow the given steps.

 

Example-:

login as: root
root@192.168.10.93’s password:
Access denied
root@192.168.10.93’s password:
Last login: Fri Jun 24 12:40:03 2011 from abilochi.nivians.net
[root@ESX06 ~]# ls
ks.cfg  old_cores
[root@ESX06 ~]# cd /v
var/      vmfs/     vmimages/ vmware/
[root@ESX06 ~]# cd /vm
vmfs/     vmimages/ vmware/
[root@ESX06 ~]# cd /vmfs/
[root@ESX06 vmfs]# ls
devices  volumes
[root@ESX06 vmfs]# cd volumes/
[root@ESX06 volumes]# ls
4e007bf3-4d7df0f4-f367-00145e57edb0  datastore1
4e034ee1-44fe69e3-3678-0015172e90ec  Datastore2
[root@ESX06 volumes]# cd datastore1/
[root@ESX06 datastore1]# ls
CLUSNODE1-STAGING                                   iso
clusnode1-staging-176                               labman
clusnode2-staging-144                               VLabMan
clusstorage                                         vmlab.iso
EN_WINDOWS_SERVER_2003_R2_ENTERPRISE_DISC1_VLP.iso  W2k8clone
EN_WINDOWS_SERVER_2003_R2_ENTERPRISE_DISC2_VLP.iso  Windows 2008
esxconsole-4e007a5a-9e42-df6d-a2cc-00145e57edb0
[root@ESX06 datastore1]# cd clusnode2-staging-144/
[root@ESX06 clusnode2-staging-144]# ls
clusnode2-staging-144-flat.vmdk  clusnode2-staging-144.vmxf  vmware-6.log
clusnode2-staging-144.nvram      vmware-2.log                vmware-7.log
clusnode2-staging-144.vmdk       vmware-3.log                vmware.log
clusnode2-staging-144.vmsd       vmware-4.log
clusnode2-staging-144.vmx        vmware-5.log
[root@ESX06 clusnode2-staging-144]# ls -a
.                                clusnode2-staging-144.vmsd  vmware-4.log
..                               clusnode2-staging-144.vmx   vmware-5.log
clusnode2-staging-144-flat.vmdk  clusnode2-staging-144.vmxf  vmware-6.log
clusnode2-staging-144.nvram      vmware-2.log                vmware-7.log
clusnode2-staging-144.vmdk       vmware-3.log                vmware.log
[root@ESX06 clusnode2-staging-144]#
[root@ESX06 clusnode2-staging-144]# vmkfstools –eagerzero clusnode2-staging-144.vm
clusnode2-staging-144.vmdk  clusnode2-staging-144.vmx
clusnode2-staging-144.vmsd  clusnode2-staging-144.vmxf
[root@ESX06 clusnode2-staging-144]# vmkfstools –eagerzero clusnode2-staging-144.vmdk
Eagerly zeroing: 100% done.

 

 

Regards

MK