reassociate vmware images

so i got the grand idea to scp some vmware images from a dead nas to another living nas. since the dead one was dead, there really wasn't a good way to move the images in the usual vmware way.

so, i proceeded to set up another iscsi device on that nas, got it mounted right with all the correct data. neat.
my vmware esx server still reported that its images were "Unknown Host" of course. but blast it, what were the names of these systems before? my vsphere console server was down. crud.

easy, i went here:

esxserver:/etc/vmware/hostd/vmInventory.xml

and there they were.

all i needed to do to reassociate them was to change the /vmfs/volume/path to the correct one. i rebooted the vmware esx server and all was cool.