Restore fails with error: Attempt to create odd sector disk failed for disk... (4036340)

Restore job is configured for a Full SP picked from My Repository view. Repo type is CIFS. Single disk VM.

Restore fails. Error: Attempt to create odd sector disk failed for disk [datastore] VM_dir/VM-flat.vmdk, Reason: Error: 3010 - FATAL unknown_io unknown I/O method vix [at main:100].

Original VM is created by P2V conversion, probably by VMware Converter. Error message is obvious: disk contains odd number of sectors. This information is stored in SP Manifest. VmConfig does not provide correct disk size in this case.

In example below disk size is 2097664 bytes. Divided by 512 (bytes per sector) it gives odd number of 4097 sectors.

<FileMapEntry SourceFile="'vix:r:vc-vs5-suplab01.prod.quest.corp:902:[SupportFB4] agRita/agRita.vmdk'" DestinationFileUUID="f5a5307c-0568-4e3f-af38-e1ae53a82a87" OriginalSizeInBytes="2097664" OutputSizeInBytes="1870" RelativeFilePath="agRita_42269235-39f7-1537-7c04-84f721343189/ag3disk_20140404_132508_f1afa3df-ac94-44ef-a622-f2f9cb85d164/agRita_20140404_132508_F_1_agRita_vmdk" ChangeID="52 4a c4 86 d5 6c e2 16-2a 5a 5e 18 da d1 f4 1f/3" ScsiID="SCSI (0:0)">

Ranger makes an API call to VC/ESX to create a VM with defined parameters. VC/ESX refuses to proceed.

The only way to restore this VM is by using manual procedure. For single disk VM the steps will be:

1. Create diskless VM in vSphere.
2. Establish SSH connection to ESX console.
3. Navigate to VM directory.
4. Use vmkfstools utility to create a disk with defined in SP Manifest size. 2 files will be created: disk header (text file) and flat.vmdk (binary).
   vmkfstools -c 2097664 agRita.vmdk
   Create: 100% done.
   ls -l agRita*.vmdk
   -rw-------    1 root     root            2097664 Apr  4 17:48 agRita-flat.vmdk
   -rw-------    1 root     root                544 Apr  4 18:25 agRita.vmdk
   
5. On Windows end, use var extractor to build flat.vmdk file. Extractor should be requested from Support Team.
6. Using Datastore browser upload flat.vmdk to the VM dir effectively overwriting flat file created in step 4.
7. In vSphere Client, attach new disk to VM.

When restore is completed and it is confirmed that VM is bootable and functional, to avoid restore problem in the future it is recommended to increase disk size up to the nearest MB or, bettter, GB. This can be done in vSphere Client.