Windows VM Restore doesn't detect the data disks
When a Windows VM, configured with multiple disks (basic and dynamic disks), is restored on a Nutanix cluster, only the boot disk is restored and accessible. While the additional disks appear at the hardware level, they are not visible in Disk Management or File Explorer within the guest OS.
Which means, the additional dynamic/basic disks are not mounted or recognized in Disk Management/File Explorer.
This behavior is observed because the OS disk is being restored as a SATA disk which doesn't require any para-virtual SCSI drivers to boot the VM However, rest of the disks are being restored as SCSI disks and in order to detect them, para-virtual SCSI drivers needs to be installed within the VM.
The following procedure describes steps to install the para virtual SCSI drivers.
Installing para virtual SCSI drivers in the VM
- Attach CD-ROM to a VM if it doesn't exists.
- Attach VirtIO-Win image to CD-ROM.
- Navigate to CD drive and then click MSI installer and install the VirtIO drivers.
- Reboot the VM to ensure the driver is loaded and functioning.
- In the Disk management, ensure all the disk are visible.
- To view the volumes, ensure the disks are brought online. Follow the procedure given below to activate the disk:
Press Windows + X key and select Disk Management.
Locate the offline disk. Usually, the disk is labeled as Offline and is greyed out.
Mouse right-click the offline disk and select Online. Windows scans the disk and displays volumes / partitions, if any.