Troubleshooting when a virtual disk is either corrupted or not a supported format

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

You are experiencing these issues:

• Converting a working virtual machine to a template fails.
• Deploying a virtual machine from a template fails.
• You receive the error:
  
  The Virtual Disk is either corrupted or not a supported format

Environment

VMware ESX Server 2.0.x
VMware ESX Server 2.1.x
VMware ESX Server 2.5.x
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x

Resolution

Note: This issue is resolved in ESX Server 3.0.2, Patch ESX-1003524: Updates to VMware-esx-vmkernel, VMware-esx-vmx, and VMware-esx-apps (1003524).

To troubleshoot a virtual disk that is corrupted or not in a supported format:

1. Store the template on VMFS volumes only and not any other volume types such as NFS shares.
2. On the VMFS volumes, create a template from the virtual machine, with the virtual machine powered off.
3. Deploy a virtual machine from the newly created template on the VMFS volumes.
4. Power on the newly deployed virtual machine.

For more information on creating templates, see the Basic Administration Guide.