VMware ESXi 4.0 to ESXi 3.5 ?

[iconSYS1]

Before anyone asks "why would you want to do that?" I'll explain the situation.
In our production enviroment we run ESXI 4.0. Management has asked that I create a lab enviroment using some old equipment, but using the exact same vmdks as the production enviroment. The old equipment at hand is a Dell 2600 with dual 32 bit Xeons. They cannot run ESXi 4.0 since they are not 64bit compatible. So thats one part of the problem.
The other part of the problem is that the production enviroment and the lab enviroment are in two physical locations and different networks and per management they need to remain that way, so I can't simply tell VMware converter to send the files to the other ESXi server.
I have copied the VM folder from thevia download from the datastore (incorrect?) and placed this onto the external drive and then use vmware converter to import it into the ESXi 3.5 server.
I get the error "The VMWARE Consolidated backup source: E:/VMDKname has a missing catalog file" before I can specify a destination. Can someone please tell me where to look for a solution to this? Thanks.

 

[Provogeek]

If the virtual machine you are trying to move has a snap-shot on the source, delete the snap-shot before attempting to move the VM.

Also, if the virtual machine hardware was updated to version 7, 3.5 won't run it. The process your following sounds like your just simply copying the VMDK over and wanting to start it up (you need the VMX file as well). I would suggest you use P2V process to move the machine over.


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Brent Schmidt Senior Network Engineer
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