ESX Error: unable to access file since it is locked
While attempting to attach a VMDK to a Virtual machine I encountered this message:
Unable to access file <unspecified filename> since it is locked
Notes:
- ESX 4.0 Update 2
- vCenter 4.0
- The point of attaching the VMDK to another VM was to troubleshoot an issue with an auto-generated AutoUnattend.xml file used during the installation of Windows Server 2008
In the past I have been able to attach hard drive files (VMDK) using this process:
- Right click on the VM and select Edit Settings
- Click the Add button
- Pick Hard Drive / Hard disk
- Navigate to an existing virtual hard drive
- Close out of the add wizard and the edit settings page.
When this process failed I tried a few other things which did not work:
- Inflate the disk, which failed with the message:
A general system error occurred failed to lock the file
- Add / remove Snapshots to the virtual machine the VMDK originally belonged to
- While I was able to take & remove the snapshots, this had no effect
- Download the VMDK for analysis in a different environment
- When I attempted to download the file, I got a "general error" message
What I eventually found out was that someone had attached the VMDK to a different virtual machine. Once I removed it from that other VM, I was able to attach it to my virtual machine with no trouble