When performing an FLR on a Windows virtual machine, all the disks does not appear as Mount point even though they show as backed up in vmdk files

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When performing an FLR on a Windows virtual machine, all the disks does not appear as Mount point.
• All the disk shows as backed up in vmdk files.

Cause

This issue occurs if disk is not compatible with FLR. Check limitations. If limitations are not hit, FLR hides any disk that has a boot flag after the first one, the disk may be marked as active or have a boot flag in Windows. There should only be one active drive in Windows.

Resolution

To resolve the issue:

1. Mark the partition as inactive or remove the boot flag.
   
   Note: This does not fix current backups, but prevents future backups from the display issue once this is complete.
    
2. Take RDP and confirm which disks are marked as active in Windows Disk Management.
3. To mark the partition inactive in Windows:
4. 1. Open diskpart from command line in Windows OS.
   2. Select List disk option. It display all the disks.
   3. Select disk X (Where X is the disk in question).
   4. Select List partition option, it displays all the partitions on the disk.
   5. Select the partition X (Where X is the partition in question).
   6. Type inactive.
      
      Notes:
   • This should take effect immediately and reboot is not required.

   • Do NOT perform these steps on the primary system disk. This stops the virtual machine from booting and need to select a boot disk from Bios boot: