Cloning Windows Server 2008 or later virtual machines with more than one disk results in all disks marked as OFFLINE except the disk on which the operating system exists

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After running Sysprep and cloning the virtual machine, the volume that does not contain the operating system on the cloned virtual machine is marked as OFFLINE.
• You experience this issue when the source virtual machine:
  • Is running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, Datacenter or any version of Windows Server 2008 R2 or later
  • Contains more than one disk or volume
  • All volumes are marked as ONLINE
  • Has a SAN policy set to OnlineALL

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x

Cause

This issue occurs due to the introduction of a new policy in Microsoft Windows 2008 and later related to SAN disks. When the Sysprep tool is run on the virtual machine, this SAN policy is not preserved in the volumes that do not contain the operating system and are marked as OFFLINE.
 

Note: The preceding link was correct as of September 25, 2014. If you find the link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

 

Resolution

This is expected behavior within the Microsoft Windows operating system.

 

To work around this issue, the disk information are required to be preserved prior to running sysprep for the first time.

1. Before running Sysprep, export the registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices from the registry on the virtual machine that you want to clone.
2. Run Sysprep using the /quit command to complete the initial Sysprep:
   
   For example:
   
   sysprep.exe /quit
    
3. Import the exported key from step 1 into the registry before shutting down the server. This ensures that the same mounted drives will be ONLINE during starting and future Sysprep runs.

Additional Information

複数のディスクが接続されている Windows Server 2008 以降の仮想マシンをクローンすると、OS がインストールされたディスク以外のすべてのディスクが 「オフライン」 と表示される