VMware ESXi zombie problem: Unable to reset kill or register VM in ESXi 4

[albertwt]

I'm having problem with my Windows Server 2003 x86 VM, in the middle of installing IIS server, What I did is that i insert the CD into the ESXi host and then from my VSphere client I point to use the host CD-ROM drive and it hangs,

What I've done:
1. Force restart the VM and it stuck in 95% of restart process.
2. in the SSL console of ESXi: services.sh restart
3. re-register the VM from datastore view into the VCenter (with the same name VMWS05) and it hangs with Status "In Progress", after 20+ minutes it came with the following error:

An error occurred while communicating with the remote host.

and the VM is not registered in the VCenter still.
4. tried to kill the process like the following but still stuck ?

	~ # ps -ef | grep vmws05
	3854821 14064 Worker#0:Win2003x86_vmws05 /bin/vmx
	14071      vmm0:Win2003x86_vmws05
	~ # kill -9 14071
	ash: cannot kill pid 14071: No such process
	~ # ps -ef | grep vmws05
	3854821 14064 Worker#0:Win2003x86_vmws05 /bin/vmx
	14071      vmm0:Win2003x86_vmws05
	~ # kill -9 14064
	ash: cannot kill pid 14064: No such process
	~ # kill -9 3854821
	ash: cannot kill pid 3854821: No such process
	~ # ps -ef | grep vmws05
	3854821 14064 Worker#0:Win2003x86_vmws05 /bin/vmx
	14071      vmm0:Win2003x86_vmws05

any kind of help would be greatly appreciated.

Note:
VMware ESXi 4.0.0 build 244038
VMwre VCenter Server 4.0.0 build 208111

Thanks.

[sister_annex]

last time i had something like that there were a few lock files that was stopping the vm from running, not sure whether this affects ESX....

My first thing would be to check datastore viewer for any .lck files

Hope this helps

EDIT: Just thought of something else - make sure your ESX is completely up to date - our latest build is 219382 which i think equates to ESX 4 update 1a (update 1 from vmware was very broken) all the updates included some important fixes - not sure again whether this will help.

[albertwt]

Hm... .lck file only happens in NFS datastore mate, not VMFS v3.3 :-o)

Until now I'm still struggling with re-adding the VM back into the VMware VCenter 4,

I've created a custom VM with the same name and just add the VMDK into my new VM it returns: Unable to access file <unspecified filename> since it is locked.

i've also issued vm-support -X 14071 -d0 -w /vmfs/volumes/MD3000i_VMFS1/Win2003x86_vmws05 command but still the VM is stuck there :-|

[sister_annex]

Hm... .lck file only happens in NFS datastore mate, not VMFS v3.3 :-o)

Thought as much lol

Still the error you are receiving would suggest that there is some form of file lock going on that has been properly released. That saying, with it erroring on an unspecified filename may suggest that ESX has it's knickers in a twist.

I am presuming a complete reboot of ESX is out of the question?