My VM will not start after copying it to another datastore on the same host.  The VM has vmdk files like these:

-rw——-    1 root     root   1739461754880 Oct 31 13:05 CCVPRNYDC01-flat.vmdk

-rw——-    1 root     root   632           Oct 31 13:03 CCVPRNYDC01.vmdk

Process was:

Shut down Windows Server 2012 guest

Renamed that guest

Copied the whole directory to a new datastore attached to same ESXi host

Edited drive paths in vmx file to point to new vmdk location.

“Create/Register VM” to add new guest VM at new location

Started the new guest VM.

Selected “I moved it” at prompt.

I did not reboot the ESXi host (shouldn’t need to)

Running ESXi 6.7.0 Update 3 (Build 14320388) stand-alone, no vSphere, vSan, etc.

No lck files exist in the directory and vmfsfilelockinfo seems ok for all files:

[…] vmfsfilelockinfo -p ./moved-CCVPRNYDC01.vmdk

vmfsfilelockinfo Version 2.0

Looking for lock owners on “moved-CCVPRNYDC01.vmdk”

“moved-CCVPRNYDC01.vmdk” is not locked by any ESX host and is Free

Total time taken : 0.026345498859882355 seconds.

The ESXi web GUI appears to crash and restart when I start this VM also.  vmx and log files are attached.   What am I missing here?