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13 Replies Last post: Oct 30, 2007 8:17 AM by DenisVmware  

Lost snaphots posted: Oct 29, 2007 11:17 AM

Click to view DenisVmware's profile Novice 7 posts since
Oct 29, 2007
Hello everyone!

I terrible sorry if I posted this message at inappropriate place.

We have a big problem. We use VMware for a long time and have one main Virtual Machine. This virtual machine have many snaphots. Today we've decided to delete one snapshot and done it. When we were deleting it we got the message 'blahblahblah ... ... needs to repear disk .... blahlbahblah' (unfortunately, I don't remember the message exactly). After that, when we open Snaphot Manager, we could see only ONE CURRENT STATE! All snapshots dissapeared! But I could see the following files in a folder : Windows Server 2003 Small Business-Snapshot5.vmsn, Windows Server 2003 Small Business-Snapshot6.vmsn ...and others snapshots. It means that we didn't delete this snapshots. But we don't see them in Snapshot Manager! Could somebody say what should we do please? We greatly need this snapshots...

Thank you all very much.

Best regards,

Denis.

Re: Lost snaphots

1. Oct 29, 2007 12:31 PM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
What VMware product do you use?

Re: Lost snaphots

3. Oct 30, 2007 1:47 AM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
FYI: this thread has been moved to the VMware Workstation forum.

Oliver
VMTN User Moderator

Re: Lost snaphots

4. Oct 30, 2007 1:50 AM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
Please provide the information requested here Read before posting questions

Re: Lost snaphots

6. Oct 30, 2007 3:30 AM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
According to the log your VM is still using the snapshots - this is good.
The problem is that the VMSD file is empty (this file is used by the Snapshot Manager to display and manage the snapshot tree).
We can try to restore it (no guarantee!).

To do this do the following:
Download tools.zip, extract it and copy vmreport.exe to the VM folder.
Shut down the VM, close Workstation and execute vmreport.exe.
This will create a text file called "vmreport.txt" - post it.
After executing vmreport.exe you can start the VM again.

Re: Lost snaphots

8. Oct 30, 2007 3:51 AM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
For (to me unknown) reasons the report didn't run properly :-(

Copy ddtget.exe to the VM folder and execute the following commands (the VM has to be powered off and Workstation closed):
[code]
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000001.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000001.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000002.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000002.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000003.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000003.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000004.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000004.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000005.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000005.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000007.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000007.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000008.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000008.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000009.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000009.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000010.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000010.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business-000011.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS-000011.txt
ddtget.exe -vmdk="Windows Server 2003 Small Business.vmdk" -desc=W2K3SBS.txt
[/code]

Then post the newly created txt files.

Re: Lost snaphots

10. Oct 30, 2007 5:41 AM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
I was able to restore the CID chain but unfortunately your vmsn files don't match your vmdk files.
You have 11 VMDK files, but only 7 VMSN and VMEM files.

According to the CID chain your snapshot tree looked like the following

[code]
base.vmdk - 000001.vmdk - 000002.vmdk - 000005.vmdk - 000004.vmdk - 000007.vmdk - 000010.vmdk
 

| 000009.vmdk
000003.vmdk - 000011.vmdk - 000008.vmdk
[/code]

Sorry, but I can't help you.
Your best bet is to leave the VM as is.

Re: Lost snaphots

12. Oct 30, 2007 8:00 AM in response to: DenisVmware
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
Well, thank you very much for your help In any case. Is it absolutely impossible to restore our snapshots?
You can still commit / delete snapshots using the approach in this document Frequently asked questions in the VMware Workstation forum.
Make a backup before doing this !

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