Article number
000004326
Affected Versions
All
Source Hypervisor
All
Target Hypervisor
All

Problem with Failover Test due to CDROM first on boot order

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Summary

This article covers a scenario when replicating from or to a VMware site where one or more VMs in the failed over VPG has a CDROM drive set as first in boot order configuration of the VM.
The result may be a successful Failover task, but the VM may not boot up properly or in rare occasions, the failover test task fails.

 

Root Cause

When replicating from a VMware > VMware environment, if a protected virtual machine is configured with CDROM devices, recovery virtual machine will also configured with CDROM devices.
Zerto, however, does not replicate the disc image if one exists in the protected site. Therefore if the VM is set to boot from CDROM, it may not boot up properly.

NOTE: In many cases, the VM will use the next device to boot from assuming the CDROM is not available.

Symptoms

If in the failed over VM(s) the CDROM drive is not set as first in boot order, the VM may not boot up properly, or the Failover Test for a VPG could fail with the following error:

Zerto:Protection group failover test. Failure. 
Failed: VM DATA01 - testing recovery could not 
be created Message: A specified parameter was 
not correct. configSpec.bootOptions.bootOrder. 
Fault: Vim25Api.InvalidArgument. 
 

Solution

Ensure that the VM is not set to boot off of the CDROM, otherwise, it will need to be manually configured for the recovery VM.

Workaround:
Remove the CDROM drives from protected VM boot order configuration. 
In order to do so, please refer to the following VMWare KB:

Changing the boot order of a virtual machine using vmx options (2011654)
 

If the VM is meant to boot off the CDROM for the VM to properly boot, then the CDROM image will need to manually be available at the target site and the Recovered VM will need to be configured appropriately.