Hello,
I have several VMs that were recovered from VMFS and put onto a Windows USB Drive (NTFS). I moved the files off of the USB drive back onto the ESXi server. I started the VM using Workstation, but get the message: "Unable to enumerate all disks" (there is just 1 disk, but there are vswp files)
I then attempted to mount the drive in Windows, but I get: "Error reading volume information. Please select another disk file". This happens whether I read the base vmdk or the flat.vmdk.
After this I created a new VM (Local, not ESXi) and tried to map the flat.vmdk to the new VM. When I click finish on the Add Hardware Wizard I get: "The file specified is not a virtual disk"
I'm not real sure where to go at this point. The files look like this:
I'm not sure what else I can do at this point to get my data back. There are other VM's on this recovered disk that are similar in that I cannot access them. I'm sure there must be a way that I am completely missing
The descriptor file's first line is incomplete, and should read
# Disk DescriptorFile
The file also has some binary zeroes an the end.
Please see whether fixing the descriptor file already solves the issue.
André
I purchased a VMDK Recovery software called Aryson. It has no problem reading the disk. Not sure why VMWare is having a problem. Now I'm trying to figure out how to take that data and then copy it over to a new vmdk so that I can boot up. Not sure how easy that is going to be...
Which files have been restored? Note that each virtual disk on an ESXi host consists of two .vmdk files (more if there are snapshots), a small header/descriptor file, and the data file. Both of them are required, and it's always the descriptor file that's used in the VM's settings.
Please post a complete file listing (the output of dir *.*), and attach the small descriptor .vmdk files to your next reply.
André
The descriptor file's first line is incomplete, and should read
# Disk DescriptorFile
The file also has some binary zeroes an the end.
Please see whether fixing the descriptor file already solves the issue.
André
Wow - thank you so much! That is all it took. And I was going through so much trying to fix this when the problem was that simple.