Issue
When trying to power on a machine you will recieve the error message,
The attempted operation cannot be permited in the current state (Powered Off)
Resolution
This issue is caused by your Virtual Machine still have a reference to something in its configuration file which is no longer available. This could be a removed ISO that is still mounted against its CD-ROM, a removed named serial pipe etc etc.
In order to resolve this issue you will need SSH access to your ESX box.
Below are the required steps involved,
- SSH to your device
- Find you configuration file for your Virtual Machine in question via the command find / -name *”vmx”
- edit this file using the vi command. #vi [path].vmx
- Within here you should find reference to a peripheral for your virtual machine that is causing the issue. You may have a reference to a ISO that is no longer in your datastore. Or a named piped that you have removed. For this hashed out the required line. Then save the file.
- Now try to start your Virtual Machine.
Rick Donato is a Network Automation Architect/Evangelist and the founder of Packet Coders.
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