VMWare Converter: vmodl.MethodFault (CloneVolume Error)

If you run a few VMWare Converters, you’ll eventually be forced to dig through their log files (vmware-converter-server.log) to track down errors that occur during conversion. Most of the time, the error you see either tells you the solution straight away, or causes you so much pain you just stop trying. There’s no middleground, as it seems. Black or white.

Here’s one such error, and a fix for it.

[task-1] -- ERROR -- Convert: converter.fault.CloneFault
(converter.fault.CloneFault) {
    dynamicType = <unset>,
    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
    description = "BlockLevelVolumeCloneMgr::CloneVolume: Detected a write error during the 
    cloning of volume \WindowsBitmapDriverVolumeId=[67-F8-09-00-00-7E-00-00-00-00-00-00]. Error: 37409 (type: 1, code: 2338)",
    msg = "",
}

You would interpret that error as a “write error”, meaning a problem on the system you are convert TO, and not FROM. But the error can just as easily (and apparently, more often) indicate a problem on your SOURCE, and not only the destination.

To make sure, run a checkdisk on the Windows client/server you have as the source of your destination.

C:\>chkdsk d:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
...

Without parameters, it just does a read-only check. If it finds problem, it will alert you of the right parameters to use to fix them.

And stop any service you might have on that system (web/database/mail/…), so the system is doing as little read/write as possible on the disks.