Virtual Citizen

Nested 64bit VMs on a Mac

Tom — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:30:21 +0000

I have just come back to the Mac world, with a purchase of a Macbook Pro. Its fully loaded with 16GB of RAM, and I am planning on using it for my practice lab for VCAP.

Once I fired it up after upgrading the RAM, I started VMware Fusion, installed ESXi 5 and a Windows . . . → Read More: Nested 64bit VMs on a Mac

Error 25030. Setup failed to load a kernel driver (vmrawdks)

Tom — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:33:36 +0000

When upgrading to the latest version of VMware Tools on one of my Server 2008 R2 VMs, I got the error message:

Error 25030. Setup failed to load a kernel driver (vmrawdks).

I restarted the server, hoping that would fix the problem, but I got the exact same error again.

I then found a . . . → Read More: Error 25030. Setup failed to load a kernel driver (vmrawdks)

VMworld Europe 2011 Announced

Tom — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:20:57 +0000

Officially announced today, VMworld Europe 2011 will again take place in Copenhagen, Denmark (my hometown)! I was lucky enough to attend VMworld Europe 2010 in Copenhagen, and it was one of the highlights of the year for me.

I especially enjoyed the labs. Where I spent so much time, I was able . . . → Read More: VMworld Europe 2011 Announced

PowerCLI 4.1 Poster

Tom — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:03:35 +0000

I have been getting deeper and deeper into PowerCLI lately. It has been especially helpful in making changes to my 8 Host – 40 VM test environment.

I don’t have anything great to contribute to the scripting community yet, but I thought I would publish a link to the PowerCLI 4.1 Poster.

I picked mine . . . → Read More: PowerCLI 4.1 Poster

vCenter Converter Task FAILED $Reconfig$

Tom — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:53:44 +0000

Recently I was running a P2V conversion of a Server 2003 file server. It had approximately 200GB in Hard Drives, so the conversion took a considerable amout of time. (25 hours and 46 minutes to be exact)

Finally at 95% it stopped with:

Error: An error occurred during reconfiguration

FAILED: Unable to create ‘\\.\vstor2-mntapi10-shared-69066906007E00000000000007000000\$Reconfig$’.

I . . . → Read More: vCenter Converter Task FAILED $Reconfig$

Upgrade ESXi 3.5 to 4.1 – HA Configuration Fails “A general system error occurred: Invalid fault”

Tom — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:55:38 +0000

After upgrading my ESXi 3.5 host to ESXi 4.1 using the Update Manager, HA configuration kept failing.

I would get an error saying: A general system error occurred: Invalid fault.

I tried all the basic things like checking all the VMs to make sure VMware tools were not mounted on any machines. They were not.

Create a Windows Server 2008R2 Template for ESXi 3.5

Tom — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 10:14:08 +0000

Creating an activated sysprepped template of Windows Server 2008 R2 in VMware ESXi 3.5 is fairly straight forward. I found an excellent tutorial here:

http://d3planet.com/rtfb/2010/05/18/creating-an-activated-windows-server-2008-r2-vmware-template-using-microsoft-sysprep/

I did have one problem that I wanted to share in case it happens to someone else.

After creating the image, installing Anti-virus and all Windows updates, I sysprepped the . . . → Read More: Create a Windows Server 2008R2 Template for ESXi 3.5

Always check your scripts… Always!

Tom — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:17:16 +0000

So my first real post is going to reveal that I made a mistake… A pretty huge one actually.

I have recently starting playing around with Powershell to automate a lot of the monotonous tasks that are supposed to be done by our Service Desk, but are never really done right.

Long story short, I wanted . . . → Read More: Always check your scripts… Always!

Hello World!

Tom — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:41:45 +0000

This is my first post on VirtualCitizen.org, I hope it to be the first of many talking about my experiences and lessons learned as a System Admin for a large enterprise. My main focus will be on Virtualization, Storage and Scripting with a few other things thrown in.

I welcome any comments and will do . . . → Read More: Hello World!