Drive keeps disappearing when VM isloaded from that drive

[tankman1989]

So i have a VM located on drive G and somethines the VM sill get an error and shut down. Now the drive is gone in the host and I can not get it back by disk management and rescanning the drives. I have to reboot. Then, once again, the drive appears and all is good for some tie unti it repeats.

Any idea why this might be happening?

This is a totally re-installed system. The VM was originally created on a previous OS (same OS win 7 64) and the vm has always been in the same place.

now it is just acting up and it is not a fun thing

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

How is "Drive G" attached and seen by the host hypervisor?

 

[nlinecomputers]

What VM software? VirtualBox? Vmware? ESX?

 

[tankman1989]

Drive G is a SATA drive and is seen as a basic drive in the host OS. I am using VMplayer. When I boot the VM and I go to file explorer I get an error (can't remember what ecactly) but the VM keeps running but drive G disappears on the host. I go to Disk management and it isn't there. I refresh and rescan the drives and it never re-appears which I find very odd. The only remedy is rebooting.

 

[nlinecomputers]

When I boot the VM and I go to file explorer I get an error (can't remember what exactly)

That is probably kind of important dontyathink?

 

[tankman1989]

I've found that this seems to be a problem with VMware in general. I installed VMware vSphere Client to connect to my ESXi machine and after I run this app the drive disappears as well, and it has no connection that I can see to the drive that disappears.

The machine that is running ESXi does not connect or communicate with the drive in any way that I can see.

I've found some similar problems with VMware but never an answer. This is the first that I have seen 2 VMware programs doing the same thing to the same drive.

Do you think re-assigning the drive a new drive letter change anything? I'm assuming that the problem will follow the drive letter but will that help narrow down any issues?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Can you draw a more clear picture of the setup, and the problem here?
I see "VMWare Player" mentioned (but not until your 2nd post), I see "ESXi" mentioned, I see "vSphere client" mentioned in the first post.
All completely different products....and none that can be installed on the same bare metal at the same time.

I "think" what I'm gathering, is that you have a desktop computer that runs some flavor of Windows on it, and you also have VMware Player installed so you can have a Microsoft Virtual PC like experience..and you had at least 1 virtual guest running on a local SATA drive G?

You then installed vSphere client on this local desktop...and when you run that to manage your ESXi host located elsewhere on your network, it breaks your local VMware player?

If that's the case, what version of vSphere client are you running? Maybe you have a way outdated version, although I don't see how it would mess with the local VMware Player API.

 

[tankman1989]

Can you draw a more clear picture of the setup, and the problem here?
I see "VMWare Player" mentioned (but not until your 2nd post), I see "ESXi" mentioned, I see "vSphere client" mentioned in the first post.
All completely different products....and none that can be installed on the same bare metal at the same time.

I "think" what I'm gathering, is that you have a desktop computer that runs some flavor of Windows on it, and you also have VMware Player installed so you can have a Microsoft Virtual PC like experience..and you had at least 1 virtual guest running on a local SATA drive G?

You then installed vSphere client on this local desktop...and when you run that to manage your ESXi host located elsewhere on your network, it breaks your local VMware player?

If that's the case, what version of vSphere client are you running? Maybe you have a way outdated version, although I don't see how it would mess with the local VMware Player API.

Your explination of my setup is correct. I'll explain it again to make sure:

Desktop - Win 7 Ult 64. VMplayer installed on c: (SSD). Vsphere (latest release downloaded 4-3) installed on c:. VM of Win 7 located in SATA drive G. VMtools installed as well.

Server - ESXi 5.1 installed. 1 VM installed - Ubuntu 12.04 server. VMtools installed as well.

When I run the VM located on drive G on the desktop, the drive disappears at some point. I also encountered the drive disappearing after running vSphere client with no association with drive G. I go to Disk management and rescan disks and it doesn't show back up, only on reboot. I've found a number of other reports on this (VMplayer related) with no explanation, all starting in 2012.

I'm trying to replicate the error with only running vSphere but I can only do it so much as I have to use the machines.. I'm not 100% sure that the drive disappearing is related to vSphere as it has only happened once so far.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

OK, so you have a Win7 host.....and on it, VMware Player is installed...and you have a guest that is also Windows 7...and that's installed on a "G" drive of your Win7 host.

And you installed vSphere client on your Win7 guest...not on the Win7 host?

I downloaded/installed VMwarePlayer on my rig here at the office, of which I've had vSphere client installed for a while. Just to see if they collide. However I'm wondering if your VMwarePlayer guest on drive G just disconnects randomly, not related to vSphere client.

Makes me wonder what kind of hardware your Win7 host has? What drive controllers. Latest BIOS?

 

[tankman1989]

OK, so you have a Win7 host.....and on it, VMware Player is installed...and you have a guest that is also Windows 7...and that's installed on a "G" drive of your Win7 host.

And you installed vSphere client on your Win7 guest...not on the Win7 host?

I downloaded/installed VMwarePlayer on my rig here at the office, of which I've had vSphere client installed for a while. Just to see if they collide. However I'm wondering if your VMwarePlayer guest on drive G just disconnects randomly, not related to vSphere client.

Makes me wonder what kind of hardware your Win7 host has? What drive controllers. Latest BIOS?

Vsphere is on the Host.

I'm running a new rig, Asus board with ASmedia 106x SATA controller. I think the BIOS is latest. I ran all the updates I could and I don't see it disappearing currently but I can't predict when it might.

 

[tankman1989]

Here is the error I'm getting when the drive disappears:

I checked event viewer and the logs had these to say, the only thing that seemed relevant (I need to learn how to read logs better). The first one mentions IDE but everything on the board is SATA, there are no IDE ports at all. Is that normal?

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0.

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk7\DR7.

The volume 1TB2 (D:) was not defragmented because an error was encountered: The disk was disconnected from the system. (0x89000011)

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Well I installed player on my rig, yesterday I installed an OpenSUSE guest. I managed our ESXi rigs with my vSphere client. All was well.

My rig is all Intel based...it's an HP Elite 8000 series, i5, 8 gigs of RAM.

Although I love Asus mobo's...(Intel based ones only)...I'm not sure of that "ASmedia" SATA controller. Perhaps it doesn't play nice with a hypervisor. I'm curious on that defrag error and if it's related to the prior 2 errors you post (as in...all 3 about the same time?) And why is a hosts data store being defragged? Keep defrag out of there.

 

[tankman1989]

Well I installed player on my rig, yesterday I installed an OpenSUSE guest. I managed our ESXi rigs with my vSphere client. All was well.

My rig is all Intel based...it's an HP Elite 8000 series, i5, 8 gigs of RAM.

Although I love Asus mobo's...(Intel based ones only)...I'm not sure of that "ASmedia" SATA controller. Perhaps it doesn't play nice with a hypervisor. I'm curious on that defrag error and if it's related to the prior 2 errors you post (as in...all 3 about the same time?) And why is a hosts data store being defragged? Keep defrag out of there.

Thanks for the reply!

I have to look into the defrag. I never run it b/c I'm running SSD.

I think I found out that the problem is the eSATA port. This drive is an eSATA drive, so I switched the ports and still have a problem. Ran Seatools and it basically froze. Switched over to USB 2 and it's flying (in comparison). So, looks like I have another failure for either MOBO ports or enclosure (or cable). Since it happened on both ports, I'll put my money on the enclosure. What you say?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Can you try an internal SATA port on the mobo?