Hello,
We are attempting to restore a physical machine that we have been backing up using "Backup for Windows" to a VMware Esxi 7 VM, essentially P to V conversion. We restored as virtual disk using the file format "VMware Virtual Disk vmfsdynamic", and the VM file was successfully restored to a local NAS. The restore file came in the form of two files: *computer name*-s001.vmdk (about 20 GB in size) and *computer name*.VMDK (about 500 bytes). We then imported the VMDK and vmdk files onto the VMware host, and that was also successful. However, when we got to the point of registering the VM, the visible imported VMDK file is grayed out. The other VMs that we already have setup each have a vmx file, but the VM that we imported does not have that.
So, our question is, is it even possible to restore a workstation as an Esxi 7 VM? And if so, what are we missing? This seems like it is perhaps an unusual restore method, and we have not been able to find much in the way of specific instructions for this scenario.
And just to note, the Esxi version we are using is a free version. We aren't sure if that is relevant or not.