Delete snapshots created with Workstation using Player

[bemymonkey]

Hi everyone!

I'm trying to expand the disk on my Ubuntu VM (which requires all snapshots to be gone), but the VM seems to have some snapshots left over from my VMWare Workstation trial - and I can't for the life of me figure out how to delete the snapshots without breaking the entire VM.

Deleting "Ubuntu-Snapshot1.vmem", "Ubuntu-Snapshot1.vmsn", "Ubuntu-Snapshot2.vmem" and "Ubuntu-Snapshot2.vmsn" didn't help - rather, it causes Player to throw an error when launching the VM.

Any bright ideas that don't require me to get Workstation? My trial has been over for a long time, and I've found Player to be completely sufficient for my needs...

Thanks in advance!

[continuum]

Add another disk to that VM - same size as the one you already have.

Then te VM consists of /dev/sda = the original disk with the snapshots and of /dev/sdb = the new drive.
Then boot into a Linux LiveCD and run

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
when that is done remove the original disk with the snapshots and use the second drive instead

[bemymonkey]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot later.

[WoodyZ]

I haven't tried this with VMware Workstation 8 however IIRC with previous versions, if you still have VMware Workstation installed even expired you should still be able to use the Snapshot Manager and with the exception of actually running a Virtual Machine all functionality of VMware Workstation should still work and then use the VMware Player install from VMware Workstation to run the Virtual Machine(s).

Otherwise continuum's suggestion is a viable method.

Message was edited by: WoodyZ - Originally posted at: Dec 29, 2011 7:20 AM

[continuum]

yep - WoodyZ is right - with an expired Workstation you can still use snapshot-manager actions as long as you power off the VM while doing it

[bemymonkey]

That sounds a lot easier, thanks. As soon as my video encode finishes I'll tackle the VHD :smileygrin:         

[bemymonkey]

So, finally have a few free moments to try this, but unfortunately I can no longer find the VMWare Workstation installation package, and I can no longer download one from vmware.com, because my trial has expired. Any other ideas? Or is there a public FTP server or something like that?

-edit- Never mind... looks like I was just looking in the wrong place. Think I've found it, downloading now...

[Chris_Leaman]

This worked for me and is much simpler...

1. Close VMware Player (or ensure that the virtual machine is not running and a different virtual machine is selected).

2. Rename the .vmsd file in the virtual machine directory to .vmsd.bak.

3. Open VMware Player and edit the virtual machine.  You should now be able to Expand the hard disk.

[continuum]

???
sounds like you wanted to answer to a different post ???

[Chris_Leaman]

No, I had a similar problem to what bemymonkey did:

I'm trying to expand the disk on my Ubuntu VM (which requires all snapshots to be gone), but the VM seems to have some snapshots left over from my VMWare Workstation trial - and I can't for the life of me figure out how to delete the snapshots without breaking the entire VM.

I was trying to expand the disk on my virtual machine and received the following message from VMware Player:

Disks can't be expanded if they belong to virtual machines that have snapshots. To expand this disk either remove the snapshots or use VMware vCenter Converter.

After renaming the .vmsd file, I was able to use VMware Player to expand the disk.

[iboutoma]

Worked for me. Thanks for the simple method