Virtual machine fails to power on or boot after being converted

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VMware vSphere ESXi

Symptoms:

You are experiencing these issues with a converted virtual machine:

Virtual machine console is black or blank with the cursor in the top left corner of the screen.
Virtual machine is not powering on or rebooting.
Virtual machine cannot be rebooted in safe mode.

Unregister the virtual machine from vCenter, by right-clicking the virtual machine and selecting Remove from Inventory or by executing this command as the root user:

vmware-cmd –s unregister <vm_name>.vmx
Open the .vmdk file of the virtual machine using a text editor such as notepad, vi or nano. Do not use Wordpad.
If the adapterType setting in the .vmdk file is IDE, edit the setting to a SCSI adapter type, such as:

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
or
ddb.adapterType = "buslogic"
Open the .vmx file of the virtual machine using a text editor such as notepad, vi, or nano. Do not use Wordpad.
Choose the same controller type from Step 3 and edit the .vmx file to add these lines:

scsi0.present = "true"
scsi0.sharedBus = "none"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi0:0.present = "true"
scsi0:0.fileName = "<name of VM>.vmdk"
scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"

Note: Add these lines only for the primary disk of the virtual machine.
Re-register the virtual machine to vCenter, by executing:

vmware-cmd –s register <vm_name>.vmx
In vCenter, add the existing virtual disks to the virtual machine.

Note: Ensure that the controller is SCSI 0:0 is for the boot disk and SCSI 0:<#> (where # is 1- 15 ) for each additional disk.
Change the permissions of the virtual machine's .vmx file, by executing:

chmod 755 <vm_name>.vmx

For more information, see:

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