Import VMDK - not sure what I am doing wrong

[proxnoob1111]

I am trying to import .vmdk files from an SMB share ("ISOs") I have mounted on my Proxmox server. I have tried following the instructions here but the VM is never able to boot.

I have even tried using Starwind V2V to qcow2 and the VM could not boot then either.


I just started fresh, my exact process:
root@proxsff01:/mnt# cd pve
root@proxsff01:/mnt/pve# cd ISOs/
root@proxsff01:/mnt/pve/ISOs# cd home-assistant/

(I have a -flat VMDK in there too as well but it seems like qm disk import is handling this fine)

root@proxsff01:/mnt/pve/ISOs/home-assistant# qm disk import 100 home-assistant.vmdk local-lvm
Use of uninitialized value $dev in hash element at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/QemuServer/Drive.pm line 555.
importing disk 'home-assistant.vmdk' to VM 100 ...
Logical volume "vm-100-disk-0" created.
transferred 0.0 B of 32.0 GiB (0.00%)
transferred 327.7 MiB of 32.0 GiB (1.00%)
transferred 655.4 MiB of 32.0 GiB (2.00%)
transferred 983.0 MiB of 32.0 GiB (3.00%)
transferred 1.3 GiB of 32.0 GiB (4.00%)
transferred 1.6 GiB of 32.0 GiB (5.00%)
transferred 1.9 GiB of 32.0 GiB (6.01%)
transferred 2.2 GiB of 32.0 GiB (7.01%)
transferred 2.6 GiB of 32.0 GiB (8.01%)
transferred 2.9 GiB of 32.0 GiB (9.01%)
transferred 3.2 GiB of 32.0 GiB (10.01%)
transferred 3.5 GiB of 32.0 GiB (11.01%)
transferred 3.8 GiB of 32.0 GiB (12.01%)


etc. etc.

unused0: successfully imported disk 'local-lvm:vm-100-disk-0'
root@proxsff01:/mnt/pve/ISOs/home-assistant#

I then attach Unused Disk 0 (local-lvm:vm-100-disk-0) to my VM 100 on the default LSI controller as SCSI 0

I then power up the VM and observe from the console that the disk isn't getting seen. It just sits at "Booting from Hard Disk..." forever. I have already set my boot options and order to use SCSI 0

What am I doing wrong here? The VM is Home Assistant (Slackware under the hood) so I did not mess with any of the Windows required configs. I do not have access to any ESXi host any more.

In case this helps:

root@proxsff01:/mnt/pve/ISOs/home-assistant# pvdisplay
--- Physical volume ---
PV Name /dev/nvme0n1p3
VG Name pve
PV Size 237.47 GiB / not usable <1.32 MiB
Allocatable yes
PE Size 4.00 MiB
Total PE 60793
Free PE 4097
Allocated PE 56696
PV UUID 4maWJB-Dxgt-Ki0y-9Vlj-44i2-2H58-XKgWCm

root@proxsff01:/mnt/pve/ISOs/home-assistant# lvdisplay
--- Logical volume ---
LV Name data
VG Name pve
LV UUID 4wEveq-xesE-Z9W1-PCtt-5sUv-yjei-d4z6TT
LV Write Access read/write (activated read only)
LV Creation host, time proxmox, 2024-12-11 17:03:44 -0500
LV Pool metadata data_tmeta
LV Pool data data_tdata
LV Status available
# open 0
LV Size <141.23 GiB
Allocated pool data 7.25%
Allocated metadata 1.31%
Current LE 36154
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 252:5

--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/pve/swap
LV Name swap
VG Name pve
LV UUID jcgLnS-fxhE-Wv4S-Q4IZ-aNC7-KGxa-PwEDqp
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time proxmox, 2024-12-11 17:03:43 -0500
LV Status available
# open 2
LV Size 8.00 GiB
Current LE 2048
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 252:0

--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/pve/root
LV Name root
VG Name pve
LV UUID D1qJW4-EzFn-fUEF-I2lS-xkUo-SNB1-gsd9co
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time proxmox, 2024-12-11 17:03:43 -0500
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size <69.37 GiB
Current LE 17758
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 252:1

--- Logical volume ---
LV Path /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
LV Name vm-100-disk-0
VG Name pve
LV UUID CbaG8Z-vNV2-97u2-gXlU-9WLi-7pRO-N1Lnyn
LV Write Access read/write
LV Creation host, time proxsff01, 2024-12-11 19:21:40 -0500
LV Pool name data
LV Status available
# open 1
LV Size 32.00 GiB
Mapped size 32.00%
Current LE 8192
Segments 1
Allocation inherit
Read ahead sectors auto
- currently set to 256
Block device 252:6

 

[waltar]

Did you "Select your vm 100 -> options -> boot order -> allow your imported disk also and move to top. Then restart your vm." ?

 

[fiona]

Hi,
could it be that the image requires EFI to boot (if yes, see: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/OVMF/UEFI_Boot_Entries ) Does it work with a different SCSI controller, i.e. VirtIO or PVSCSI?

If those don't help, please post the output of

pveversion -v
fdisk -l /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
lsblk -f /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
qm config 100

 

[proxnoob1111]

Did you "Select your vm 100 -> options -> boot order -> allow your imported disk also and move to top. Then restart your vm." ?

Hi waltar, a good call out. I did indeed.

Hi,
could it be that the image requires EFI to boot (if yes, see: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/OVMF/UEFI_Boot_Entries ) Does it work with a different SCSI controller, i.e. VirtIO or PVSCSI?

If those don't help, please post the output of

pveversion -v
fdisk -l /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
lsblk -f /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
qm config 100

fiona - I am having trouble getting into OVMF menu. The VM boots too quickly to esc out to it, it gets me to this boot device selection menu:



Even if I do a reset from the console and spam esc (or the esc soft button in the console screen) I cannot get in. I do not see an option for forcing boot to BIOS or a boot delay (like VMware has), so not sure how to proceed at this point.

 

[proxnoob1111]

root@proxsff01:~# pveversion -v
proxmox-ve: 8.3.0 (running kernel: 6.8.12-4-pve)
pve-manager: 8.3.0 (running version: 8.3.0/c1689ccb1065a83b)
proxmox-kernel-helper: 8.1.0
proxmox-kernel-6.8: 6.8.12-4
proxmox-kernel-6.8.12-4-pve-signed: 6.8.12-4
ceph-fuse: 17.2.7-pve3
corosync: 3.1.7-pve3
criu: 3.17.1-2
glusterfs-client: 10.3-5
ifupdown2: 3.2.0-1+pmx11
ksm-control-daemon: 1.5-1
libjs-extjs: 7.0.0-5
libknet1: 1.28-pve1
libproxmox-acme-perl: 1.5.1
libproxmox-backup-qemu0: 1.4.1
libproxmox-rs-perl: 0.3.4
libpve-access-control: 8.2.0
libpve-apiclient-perl: 3.3.2
libpve-cluster-api-perl: 8.0.10
libpve-cluster-perl: 8.0.10
libpve-common-perl: 8.2.9
libpve-guest-common-perl: 5.1.6
libpve-http-server-perl: 5.1.2
libpve-network-perl: 0.10.0
libpve-rs-perl: 0.9.0
libpve-storage-perl: 8.2.9
libspice-server1: 0.15.1-1
lvm2: 2.03.16-2
lxc-pve: 6.0.0-1
lxcfs: 6.0.0-pve2
novnc-pve: 1.5.0-1
proxmox-backup-client: 3.2.9-1
proxmox-backup-file-restore: 3.2.9-1
proxmox-firewall: 0.6.0
proxmox-kernel-helper: 8.1.0
proxmox-mail-forward: 0.3.1
proxmox-mini-journalreader: 1.4.0
proxmox-offline-mirror-helper: 0.6.7
proxmox-widget-toolkit: 4.3.1
pve-cluster: 8.0.10
pve-container: 5.2.2
pve-docs: 8.3.1
pve-edk2-firmware: 4.2023.08-4
pve-esxi-import-tools: 0.7.2
pve-firewall: 5.1.0
pve-firmware: 3.14-1
pve-ha-manager: 4.0.6
pve-i18n: 3.3.1
pve-qemu-kvm: 9.0.2-4
pve-xtermjs: 5.3.0-3
qemu-server: 8.3.0
smartmontools: 7.3-pve1
spiceterm: 3.3.0
swtpm: 0.8.0+pve1
vncterm: 1.8.0
zfsutils-linux: 2.2.6-pve1

root@proxsff01:~# fdisk -l /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
Disk /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0: 32 GiB, 34359738368 bytes, 67108864 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 65536 bytes / 65536 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 42C47CE3-4843-478A-925D-294B2EB17D52

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p1 2048 67583 65536 32M EFI System
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p2 67584 116735 49152 24M Linux filesystem
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p3 116736 641023 524288 256M Linux filesystem
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p4 641024 690175 49152 24M Linux filesystem
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p5 690176 1214463 524288 256M Linux filesystem
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p6 1214464 1230847 16384 8M Linux filesystem
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p7 1230848 1427455 196608 96M Linux filesystem
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p8 1427456 67108830 65681375 31.3G Linux filesystem

root@proxsff01:~# lsblk -f /dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
pve-vm--100--disk--0

root@proxsff01:~# qm config 100
boot: order=scsi1
cores: 2
cpu: x86-64-v2-AES
memory: 2048
meta: creation-qemu=9.0.2,ctime=1733956044
name: home-assistant
net0: virtio=BC:24:11:20:26:CA,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1,tag=1
numa: 0
ostype: l26
scsi1: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-0,size=32G
smbios1: uuid=1435772a-f54c-420a-85bf-198992666555
sockets: 1
vmgenid: f7d6db7b-1d38-42e9-b36e-84e35c9178a4

 

[waltar]

Try connecting disk as sata and boot or even ide.

 

[fiona]

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0p1 2048 67583 65536 32M EFI System

So there is an EFI partition.

root@proxsff01:~# qm config 100
boot: order=scsi1
cores: 2
cpu: x86-64-v2-AES
memory: 2048
meta: creation-qemu=9.0.2,ctime=1733956044
name: home-assistant
net0: virtio=BC:24:11:20:26:CA,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1,tag=1
numa: 0
ostype: l26
scsi1: local-lvm:vm-100-disk-0,size=32G
smbios1: uuid=1435772a-f54c-420a-85bf-198992666555
sockets: 1
vmgenid: f7d6db7b-1d38-42e9-b36e-84e35c9178a4

But your VM configuration is not configured to use OVMF/UEFI, you'll need to change the BIOS setting for the configuration and add an EFI disk. Both can be done in the Hardware view of the VM.