Restore fails with one of the following errors:
"API Call failed with message: A specified parameter was not correct."
"API Call failed with message: fault.InvalidArgument.summary"
Corresponding message can be seen in vSphere under Recent Tasks.
Original VM resided on ESXi 5.1 and had Hardware version 9 (native for this ESXi version). You can find following tag in VmConfig.meatadata <version xmlns="urn:vim25">vmx-09</version>.
Since target is ESXi 5.0 (or lower), VC refuses to create VM with setting that it does not support (or not aware of) yet. No forward compatibility.
There are 2 workarounds:
1. Select ESXi 5.1 host as the restore to host.
2. a. Edit the VmConfig.metadata to work with a older version of ESX/ESXi. vmx-09 should be changed to vmx-8 if you will be restoring to a ESXi 5.0 host may have to change to another vmx if restoring to another version of ESX/ESXi host.
b. Create a new 'Restore from Manifest' job to utilize the updated VmConfig.medata file.
Warning. While it worked flawlessly in our test environment real VMs can have some other unique to ESXi 5.1 components that may not be supported by ESXi 5.0. Thus this method may not produce a valid VM.
