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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

vmdk file disappeared suddenly

Doing some investigate why the Windows 2008 R2 Server was not responding I discovered the vmdk file had disappeared.   This happened while I was at work.  The file was located in a directory on a FREENAS iSCSI volume which I am able to browse to using the Datastore Browser.  All the other files seem to be there. I've attached the last log file.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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vJJSosa
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Gary,

Please check this KB:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100423...

You need to browse Datastore from Command line into the Host, should be able to see the flat vmdk, please let me know if you can see it.

Regards

[VCAP5-DCA, VCP3/4/5, VCP-DT4, MCITP Network Infrastructure, HP ASE Bladesystem]
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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

No it doesn't exist.  What is in the directory is a .vmss, a .vmx, a .nram, a .vmxf, a .vmsd and 7 log files

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vJJSosa
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can you explain me with more details what happened? how did you found the incident? some previous task? please, if you can, share your .vmx file

on the other hand, this was a test with another disk?

OPEN scsi0:1 '/vmfs/volumes/50a47359-c3e7d514-3f5d-001e68c5c1d8/New Virtual Machine/New Virtual Machine_1.vmdk' persistent

Regards

[VCAP5-DCA, VCP3/4/5, VCP-DT4, MCITP Network Infrastructure, HP ASE Bladesystem]
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GaryDank
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Contributor

No clue how it happened, I was at work and when I came home I server wasn't available.

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vJJSosa
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Do you have a vCenter? could you export events from host or vCenter?

[VCAP5-DCA, VCP3/4/5, VCP-DT4, MCITP Network Infrastructure, HP ASE Bladesystem]
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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

Here you go

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vJJSosa
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I need the Host Events, or vCenter Events. And Logs (message file) from the Host, not the VM.

[VCAP5-DCA, VCP3/4/5, VCP-DT4, MCITP Network Infrastructure, HP ASE Bladesystem]
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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

my bad

Is this what you are after?

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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

one more time

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

The missing flat.vmdk was stored on a VMFS formatted iSCSI LUN ?

Can you create a new VM that can attach that LUN - either via RDM or with a iSCSI-client running in a guest ?

If yes - I have several procedures for that scenarion but no time to explain details here.

If the vmdk is important give me teamviewer access and I can check myself.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

Yes the vmdk file was stored on a VMFS formatted iSCSI LUN.

I can attempted to create a VM but not for a couple of hours if you are still available to help?

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aaronwsmith
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Does anyone else other than you have access to delete files on a datastore?

I believe you cannot delete a VMDK file that's in use.  We experimented with this a while back when looking at detecting and removing orphaned VMDK files and couldn't delete a VMDK if it was registered to a VM and powered on.

So if the VMDK file was deleted, to me suggests the VM was powered down, the file deleted, and the VM powered back on.  Events in vCenter may not reflect this if someone logged in directly to an ESX/ESXi host and performed these operations via the command line.

But I believe the events should show up on the ESX/ESXi host itself if you login directly to it with a vSphere Client and check its local set of events/tasks?

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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

No one has access to the datastore ... this is on a private network.  

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aaronwsmith
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Does anyone else have access to the iSCSI NAS server hosting your VM storage?  Maybe something went wrong on that side and forced a deletion while the VM was still running?

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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

No one ... not really concerned with the why but how to recover the vmdk.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

> I believe you cannot delete a VMDK file that's in use.

ESXi itself can loose vmdks all by itself - even when ESXi can not see the files they may still be visible to vmfs-fuse


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

How do you want to proceed?

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chin2reddy
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Create a new VM with same OS (you need not install the os here, just create) as the vm for which the vmdk is missing with exactly same hard disk size. Now a new vmdk will be created. Copy this vmdk to the missing place (datastore). power on now.

Thanks,

CHIN2

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GaryDank
Contributor
Contributor

CHIN2,

Will this procedure potentially hinder the recovery of the original vmdk file?  The original contains all the users data.

Gary

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