VMDK Corruption after VDP 6 Backup

[techguyau]

Hi There,

I went to migrate a server this morning after VDP had finished its backup tasks and noticed that one of my VMs were showing their hard disks as 0B.

I removed these hard disks hoping to re-add them to the VM when trying to re-add no disks were listed in the VMs folder when browsing the datastore.

When manually searching the datastore these are the files listed:

SERVER-ctk.vmdk

SERVER-flat.vmdk

SERVER_1-000001-ctk.vmdk

SERVER_1-000001-delta.vmdk

SERVER_2-ctk.vmdk

SERVER_2-flat.vmdk

But NONE of these vmdk's are listed when trying to re-attach them to VM.

Can you anyone help me/point me in the right direction?

Much Appreciated

[Madmax01]

Hi theire,

last time i had such similiar Issue with PHD Backup.

i got error : Disk chain is not consistent

for some Reason the CID's didn't matched anymore and the parent/Child where not correctly.

this was the Reason for me why i saw "0"  Size on my Disks over vCenter. i had to fit the CID's from the highest Snapshot beginning.

Please have a look here, if is maybe same Problem.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100796...

Best regards

Max

[a_p_]

According to the file list you posted, the virtual disks' descriptor files are missing (for whatever reason), and need to be recreated (see VMware KB: Recreating a missing virtual machine disk descriptor file). However, in your case the article might not completely solve the issue, because you also have a snapshot, and doing it wrong might cause data loss. Please compress/zip the VM's *.vmx file along with all the vmware*.log files, and attach the .zip file to a reply post to see whether they contain the required information to fix the VM. In addition to the files please run ls -lisa in the VM's folder and post the output.

André

[techguyau]

Hey Andre',

I appreciate the response! I found that KB and re-created the descriptor files and my VMs boots! But alas not with the changes sitting in the snapshot! I do not have a backup of those changes and really need to consolidate that snapshot.

I have attached requested files.

Regards

Arun

[techguyau]

[root@ESX1:/vmfs/volumes/55853e10-6adcc9a4-a7a8-b8ac6f8d430b/EFSFS1] ls -lisa

total 2482201624

222313924      8 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          3780 Jul  4 11:48 .

      4   1024 drwxr-xr-t    1 root     root          2800 Jun 22 01:35 ..

155205060      0 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            13 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1-aux.xml

134233540   7168 -rw-------    1 root     root       6554112 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1-ctk.vmdk

302005700 83495936 -rw-------    1 root     root     107374182400 Jul  4 12:19 EFSFS1-flat.vmdk

327171524   1024 -rw-------    1 root     root          8684 Jul  4 12:19 EFSFS1.nvram

805335428      0 -rw-------    1 root     root           554 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1.vmdk

792752516      0 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            43 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1.vmsd

268451268      8 -rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          4422 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1.vmx

742420868   9216 -rw-------    1 root     root       8389120 Jul  4 01:39 EFSFS1_1-000001-ctk.vmdk

734032260 392596480 -rw-------    1 root     root     402017751040 Jul  4 01:39 EFSFS1_1-000001-delta.vmdk

310394308 758396928 -rw-------    1 root     root     1099511627776 Jul  4 12:19 EFSFS1_1-flat.vmdk

813724036      0 -rw-------    1 root     root           500 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1_1.vmdk

138427844   5120 -rw-------    1 root     root       5033680 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1_2-ctk.vmdk

318782916 1247653888 -rw-------    1 root     root     1319413952512 Jul  4 12:19 EFSFS1_2-flat.vmdk

822112644      0 -rw-------    1 root     root           560 Jul  4 12:39 EFSFS1_2.vmdk

465596804      8 drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          1400 Jul  4 03:29 old

624980356  30720 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root      30873124 Jul  4 01:39 vmware-1.log

67137924   1024 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root         66640 Jul  4 11:19 vmware-2.log

209744260   1024 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        316241 Jul  4 11:47 vmware-3.log

809516484   1024 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root        287531 Jul  4 12:19 vmware-4.log

826293700   1024 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root         66838 Jul  4 12:36 vmware.log

[a_p_]

Not sure what's causing it, but I cannot download/open the .zip file. Please create a new one and attach it to another reply. Also include the descriptor .vmdk file(s) which you re-created.

Did you power off the VM immediately after you saw the old content?

Just to make sure, are all the virtual disks thin provisioned?

André

[techguyau]

Hi Andre,

I have reattached another zip file including descriptor .vmdk files.

I did power down the VM after realising there was old content.

If the zip file does not work here is a link to a folder in dropbox where you can obtain them.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/eias50ehpwnvefi/AADzVwk47x0rH-rSmDcGl1_Ha?dl=0

EFSFS1 & EFSFS1_1 are thin provisioned (size on disk is less than reported in VM settings) and EFSFS1_2 is thick..

Thank you

Arun

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

From the provided information, I created the missing descripter file for the snapshot/delta file, and modified the VM's configuration (.vmx) file.

What you need to do is:

• upload the two files to the VM's folder
• delete the chanhed block tracking (...-ctk.vmdk) files, or make sure your next backup is a full backup
• delete the .vmsd file
• reload the.vmx file (see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1026043)
• create a new snapshot to ensure that you can revert to the in case something doesn't work as expected

Since the VM was powered on with the base disk, I strongly recommend to run a chkdsk to fix any possible data corruption.

After that - if everything works as expected - make sure you "Delete All" snapshots from the Snapshot Manager, provided you do have sufficent free disk space (up to ~300GB may be required).

André

[techguyau]

Hey Andre,

This has worked! Thank you so much for your all of your help!

Cheers

Arun