Help - VM Crashed and not sure if recoverable.

[jdtwood]

Hello,

We are using VMWARE ESXi and have a VM that just crashed. 

If you look at the attached screenshot of our VMWARE setup, you'll notice I have opened up DATASTORE1.  Inside the SQL VM you will see the following files.

SQL_1.vmdk is 500GB.  This is where our SQLVM DB is located.  The missing file is SQL_0.vmdk which was about 3.48 GB and that contains our Boot disk.  Without the boot disk we cannot boot into the VM and extract anything from SQL_1.vmdk.

Client version:  1.23.0

Client build number:  6506686

ESXi version: 6.5.0

ESXi build number:  7388607

Are we out of luck here?  Is it possible to plug in another SSD (1TB) and create a new Datastore to create a new VM and move the SQL_1.vmdk after a new Boot disk is created?  Would that work?

I thought I would get on the forums here and ask a guru until we can get our support connect with VMWARE direct.  THANK YOU for any and all replies.

Jim

[jdtwood]

Thanks Andre,

I really appreciate the help but unfortunately, I may have failed in the attempt to bring the SQL VM back into action.  Below are some questions I had while reading your steps.

1.  As I mentioned in my previous post, a couple of the files already existed in the directory.  I am not sure how to deal with those.  My best guess is to not overwrite them and just upload the ones that are missing.

2.  I am unable to create a new temporary snapshot.

An error occurred while taking a snapshot: Could not open or create change tracking file.

3.  I am unable to reserve the memory as instructed.  The 2nd Floppy couldn't be removed either.

4.  Powering on the VM resulted in the original error after the server crashed.

Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/589ba69b-8042b0c0-14b3-1c98ec129dac/SQL/SQL_1-000001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

5.  I powered the other VMs back on successfully and left the SQL VM as is.

The steps make sense, but unfortunately I likely made a major error in one of the steps.

Jim

[a_p_]

As mentioned in my previous reply,the base disk  "SQL_1.vmdk" has been modified, which causes the error with the snapshot chain ("The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created. The content ID of the parent virtual disk does not match the corresponding parent content ID in the child"). That's why I've attached all 4 fixed .vmdk files. Please upload all 4 of them in the previously mentioned step 3. The other errors you get are likely caused by not having fixed the broken snapshot chain.

André

[jdtwood]

Hi Andre,

Thank you!

Not sure how or why, but my assistant brought up the SQL server magically this morning by first turning off the other VMs and starting up the SQL VM.  I did that last night but for some reason it didn't work.  This morning it did.  We were able to access the SQL server and the database.  All data was there so fantastic on that front.

The remaining issue is that we still can't start all VMs due  to lack of disk space.  That may not be a problem since we have the data and can move things around a bit easier.  I'd say your steps worked in some fashion although I couldn't complete them exactly.  It was enough to get the data up.  That's amazing.

Jim

[a_p_]

Thanks for the feedback. Great to hear that.

Did you reserve the guest memory, and delete the snapshot? These two steps should free up > 100GB on the datastore.

If the snapshot remains active, you may very soon run out of disk space again.

André

[Leatherware]

Hi Andre,
I need your help. I'm facing an error during start Vm in ESXi 5.5.

[continuum]

Please create a new post and provide more details - at least attach the latest vmware.log to your post.