VMs not booting

mikedisd2

I have 3x VMs with W2008R2 that were in the middle of installing MS updates. Due to circumstances I had to cancel the patching, which I let complete and then shutdown the OS's. A few weeks later I needed to reboot them, but none of them now will complete the start up sequence, even in safe mode. They get to a blank screen and then stop. Last known configuration has no affect and disk checks are OK; I now need to go deeper in diagnostics but not sure what tools to use for VMs. Any hints on how to proceed? thanks.

jibbajabba

You say they then stop. You mean they are getting a blue screen or just sit at a blank screen?
Do they have VMware Tools installed?

If they do and the VMs boot up, does the status show 'OK' on the summary screen and does it display an IP? The reason I am asking is, we had similar issues with Windows Updates screwing with the display driver. We thought those VMs are dead but were actually up and running, we just didn't get a screen output.

Obviously easily tested with a ping.

If that is the case then you might get lucky by changing the settings of the virtual display adapter. Set it to AUTO or to any other settings there (can't 100% remember which setting is default and which fixed it).

If they are proper dead then you can basically only troubleshoot them as if they are physical machines. Starting with the automatic recovery etc.

Would really need more info to help you further.

mikedisd2

It was always going to be an obscure one; just found out that the other guy had moved the VMs from another cluster which has different physical CPUs in the ESX hosts. The NTFS volumes are corrupted but we're on the way to slowly recovering the vmdks. Thanks for the reply.