Detach shared disks from current set of VMs and re-attach the same disks to new set of VMs. VMDKs located on same shared datastore.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Detach shared disks from current set of virtual machines
• Re-attach these same disks to new set of VMs.
• Disks are located on shared datastore.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 9.x

Resolution

Pre-Checks:

• Take a backup of all involved VMs.
• Note down the current SCSI controller settings, SCSI number and SCSI ID to which every Disk is connected, as the disks will need to be attached to the same SCSI ID when they are attached back once the migration is complete
• Record the datastore paths of disks

Procedure to follow:

• Shutdown/Stop the cluster application gracefully by following all the required vendor best practices
• Shut down all VMs that are sharing the VMDKs (First shutdown all the secondary/passive VMs and then primary VM)
• Remove shared VMDKs from the secondary VMs (choose Remove from VM only, not delete from disk)
• Then remove the VMDK from Primary VM (choose Remove from VM only, not delete from disk)
• Attach the VMDK to new Primary VM. (Please pay attention to do that reflecting same SCSI number and ID to which every Disk is connected as noted in the Precheck)
• Attach the disks to secondary VMs using add existing hard disk option. (Please pay attention to do that reflecting same SCSI number and ID to which every Disk is connected as noted in the Precheck)
• Power On the VMs starting with Primary/Active Node before powering on the secondary/passive.