Rolling back to deleted snapshot

[Vehumet]

I've put myself into a bad situation, and I hope you guys can bail me out.

About a week back, I needed to restore VM. I did so, but I did it improperly, so the VM was unable to remove snapshots. I tried to remove them myself for a bit, but it was a busy week and so I didn't have time and the VM itself was functioning just time, so I decided to put it off. Today, finally having time, I decided to try to fix it, but instead I deleted 2 files while the VM was still on and before I cloned it, but after that the VM wouldn't boot. I managed to delete some other files(from a clone this time) and point the vmx at the vmdk files that still existed, but that essentially rolled that VM back a week, to the restore. I've been trying to restore to the most recent snapshot since on other clones; I haven't succeeded, but there is so much extant information in the directory that it feels like it should be possible. Please let me know if you have any ideas:

[root@hypervisor:/vmfs/volumes/576ada52-6163b4b0-b1b2-b083fee19ebf/sl-vm-02] ls -l

total 48655376

-rw-------    1 root     root      16781312 Aug 17 02:51 sl-vm-02-000001-delta.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root      16781312 Aug 22 17:02 sl-vm-02-000002-delta.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root     2147483648 Aug 16 02:51 sl-vm-02-Snapshot2.vmem

-rw-------    1 root     root     2147483648 Aug 17 02:51 sl-vm-02-Snapshot3.vmem

-rw-------    1 root     root     256901120 Aug 15 19:35 sl-vm-02-flat.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root          8684 Aug 22 17:02 sl-vm-02.nvram

-rw-------    1 root     root           635 Aug 15 19:34 sl-vm-02.vmdk

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          1354 Aug 17 02:51 sl-vm-02.vmsd

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          2633 Aug 22 17:02 sl-vm-02.vmx

-rw-------    1 root     root           150 Aug 15 19:30 sl-vm-02.vmxf

-rw-------    1 root     root     419516416 Aug 17 02:51 sl-vm-02_1-000001-delta.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root     2114015232 Aug 22 17:02 sl-vm-02_1-000002-delta.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root     42695917568 Aug 16 02:50 sl-vm-02_1-flat.vmdk

-rw-------    1 root     root           643 Aug 15 19:34 sl-vm-02_1.vmdk

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        384970 Aug 22 17:02 vmware-1.log

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         77703 Aug 22 17:07 vmware-2.log

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         77644 Aug 22 17:08 vmware.log

When I try to power on the machine the following pops up:

Failed to start the virtual machine.

Cannot open the disk 'sl-vm-02-000002.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

The system cannot find the file specified

VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk "sl-vm-02-000002.vmdk". Verify the path is valid and try again.

Module Disk power on failed.

Cannot open the disk 'sl-vm-02_1-000002.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

The system cannot find the file specified

VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk "sl-vm-02_1-000002.vmdk". Verify the path is valid and try again.

If I attempt to delete snapshots through the GUI, I don't get a popup, but in Recent Tasks window, I get:

Remove all snapshots

sl-vm-02

A general

system error

occurred:

vim.fault.G-

enericVmC-

onfigFault

root

8/22/2016 12:49:57 PM

8/22/2016 12:49:57 PM

8/22/2016 12:49:57 PM

If I try to create a snapshot, I get:

Create virtual machine snapshot

sl-vm-02

Detected an

invalid

snapshot

configurati-

on.

View details...

root

8/22/2016 12:55:45 PM

8/22/2016 12:55:45 PM

8/22/2016 12:55:46 PM

Please let me know if there's any more information that I can/should add.

[DavoudTeimouri · Accepted solution]

Try this: https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=10042...

If the problem was exist, the machine hard disk file has been deleted and you can't recover it.

Contact with VMware support on this regard.

[continuum]

‌using an iPad on the Road ...

looks like 4 descriptorvmdks are missing.

this files should still exist in vmfs-Meta-data

create vmfs meta Data dump immediatly

if you want the originals restored

[a_p_]

Please compress/zip the following files, and attach the .zip archive to a reply post. The data should allow to recreate the missing descriptor .vmdk files.

-rw-------    1 root     root           635 Aug 15 19:34 sl-vm-02.vmdk

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          1354 Aug 17 02:51 sl-vm-02.vmsd

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          2633 Aug 22 17:02 sl-vm-02.vmx

-rw-------    1 root     root           150 Aug 15 19:30 sl-vm-02.vmxf

-rw-------    1 root     root           643 Aug 15 19:34 sl-vm-02_1.vmdk

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        384970 Aug 22 17:02 vmware-1.log

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         77703 Aug 22 17:07 vmware-2.log

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         77644 Aug 22 17:08 vmware.log

André

[Vehumet]

Thanks, all. I'm trying Davoud's link, if that doesn't work I will zip them up and post them here. If it does, I'll also say that here.

continuum, I'm not sure how to go about doing that.

[Vehumet]

It works, thank you so much! Because I had 2 missing vmdks, I effectively had to do it twice,

I created a new folder and copied all the files from it into Windows. I then followed the instructions in Recreating a missing virtual disk (VMDK) descriptor file for delta disks (1026353) | VMware KB part 2 to create sl-vm-02-000001.vmdk and sl-vm-02_1-000001.vmdk. sl-vm-02_1-000001.vmdk had sl-vm-02_1.vmdk as a parent. I copied the entire thing again to a new folder, in case I wanted to stop at that intermediate point for some reason. Weirdly, when I did it using copy/paste from windows, the new vmdks weren't identical to the way they were before, so instead I went to the command line and copied the directory from there. I then made new vmdks for sl-vm-02-000002.vmdk and sl-vm-02_1-000002.vmdk, pointing them at sl-vm-02-000001.vmdk and sl-vm-02_1-000002.vmdk and at the correct delta files. At that point I started up the VM and everything worked perfectly, I can even take snapshots again.