Installing VM Ware (Again)

[dcpowerinc]

Hey Everyone

Well the inevitable happend our server, it finally keeld over. Bad news, yes. Good news is that we have a backup of the VM Ware VMDK (Almost 500 GB). My question is, can I restore my virtual machine from the VMDK? Can I simply import it, or do I need to install the operating system first?

I googled quite a bit and did see someone install direct from the VMDK but I was unable to select the file to begin the import. It was unclear weather or not the person installed the OS first onto the virtual machine, I don't belive they did.

Getting the virtual machine up and running isn't so much the issue, as is getting my quickbooks file off of the virtual machine.

It maybe worth noting that we were running VM Ware 6.0.4 and the newest version I installed today was version 8.

Anyhow, thank you all in advance for the help and support. I really appreciate it.

Thanks again,

bryan

[Harishtoy]

Hi Bryan,

Good you have VMDK backup, we can restore it I belive. can you please let me know how you backedup VMDk?

if you simply copied VMDK file then, create a new VM--> install OS and attach the backup VMDK. then you should see the files in VMDK.

Thanks,

Harish

[RDPetruska]

If you have a complete backup of the entire VM's folder, then you have everything - just copy the backup to the new computer, run Fusion, and Open an existing virtual machine (select "I Moved It" to the prompt).

If you only have the virtual disk (*.vmdk) files, you will not have to reinstall the OS - just run Fusion, create a new virtual machine and use Custom instead of the Wizard, select the same hardware options as the previous virtual machine, and select "use existing virtual disk".

[dcpowerinc]

Hey Harishtoy,

The file was backed up using our raid array (striped) on the computer. There are two VMDK files one listed at 547.02GB & 9.31GB (odd)...

Anyway, I tried to load both File>New>Create a custom virtual machine>Windows Server 2008 R2 X64>Use an existing virtual Disk>Make a separate copy of the virtual disk>Continue

I used this process for both of the copies of the VMDK that I have. I attached the screen shots below.

Is it possible that because I was on version 6.0.4 of VM Ware and the new copy is Version 8.5.8?

[dcpowerinc]

Hi RDPetruska,

I tried using this suggested route however my VMDK file is greyed out, I cannot select it.

Backup Drive.vmdk is 9.31GB while the second picture Shadow Drive.vmdk is 547.02GB.

Does this make sense that both of them are so different in storage size?

[dcpowerinc]

Hi Everyone,

I was able to load the Backup Drive.VMDK - 9.31GB into VM ware, this time it give me the error that the file needed to be repaired.

However it did error out at this point:

Question: Should I install the OS and see if I can open the file afterwards?

[Mikero]

Might be a good idea to create a new VM and attach this .vmdk to it, extract what you can from it.

[dcpowerinc]

Hi Mikero,

Yes, I created a new virtual machine and installed Windows Server R2008 R2.

I mounted my Backup Drive.VMDK and restarted the virtual machine, had some files but not all. Shut Down.

Next, tried to mount my Shadow Drive.VMDK and received error message

I have a feeling that this VMDK image has all of the data I need on it.

What would you guys suggest to repair this virtual disk ?

[Mikero]

we have a tool called 'vdiskmanager' which has a repair option, but it may or may not work depending on how much corruption is present.

Repairing a sparse virtual disk in Fusion (1023888) | VMware KB

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -R /path/to/your/Backup\ Drive.vmdk