How do I restore a deleted VM using Snap Manager?

[mattstewartcsd]

I am having problems restoring VM's. I have an ESX host,attached to an NFS volume for storage on a netapp, and I am using VSphere Client V4. I snap my VM's on a regular basis and am testing what happends if I delete an image.

I right click on the 'VM' and select 'remove from disk'

On the NFS volume, although the VM folder is still present, I note that all the .vm** files have gone.

I open Snap Manager vor Virtual Infrastructure (v 1.2) and restore the snap pre deletion.

Once complete I can see all the .vm** files have returned on the netapp, however, the VM does not reappear on the vsphere console.

How do I get it back?

[demean0r · Accepted solution]

Browse to the VM folder in the Datastore, right click the '.vmx' file and select Add to Inventory.

[mattstewartcsd]

Thanks very much for that, works perfectly.

On a related note, do you know how to restore a portion of VM (such as a deleted folder),without having to restart the VM? Are there specific tools to do this, as far as Ic an see Snap Manager will just shut down the VM, and bring up the older snap, this is not always idea if you can't reboot a server at short notice.

Thanks

[rahqa]

From a VMware front, you may use VCB (VMware consolidated backup). This gives you the fesability of taking both Image level (Full VM) backups and also File level backups.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_vcb_15_u1_admin_guide.pdf

thanks

Rahul