Hello everyone,
I have a quick question on configuring SRM with the Windows pagefile residing on a non-replicated datastore. I've got this configured and below are the steps I did but my problem is that whenever I present my "template vmdk", test the recovery or do a restore, the VMDK at the DR site comes up with the next drive letter available inside Windows. My understanding is that once the "Z" drive letter has been assigned to the Windows operating system, it would keep it as a default configuration.
Here are my steps:
- Created a test virtual machine
- Presented an 8GB VMDK to the OS that sits on non-replicated datastore
- Formatted within Windows and assigned drive letter "Z"
- Removed the vmdk from the configuration
- Used vmkfstools to clone the vmdk to be my template
- Used vmkfstools to clone the template created in the step above to a new folder for an existing windows server.
- Present that newly created vmdk to an existing VM
- Problem #1: Even though the template was configured as Z drive, it uses next available drive letter when presented to the virtual machine.
This problem presists at the DR site as well.
- I've copied my "template" pagefile VMDK to the DR site (along with the -flat) and cloned it for the virtual machine I am protecting.
- Within SRM, I point "Hard Disk 2" to the cloned VMDK at the DR site.
- Test my failover
- Problem #2: The cloned VMDK comes up with next available drive letter, placing the pagefile on the system disk. If I manually change the drive letter back to Z and reboot the server, the pagefile gets moved back to Z without any intervention.
Note that the template was created using Windows 2003 and the existing virtual machine is also a Windows 2003 box.
Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jeff
