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Cheeseman22
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Deleted vmdk files

We have a VM player hosted on it's own separate drive, That 500gb drive became full and instead of moving some of the vmdk files they were deleted. We still have 000001-000002.vmdk  and 00132.-000174.vdmk files intact with all snapshot files. 

Is there a way to make this VM usable again without the deleted file. We still have 240Gb of files but machine will not start.

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Cheeseman22
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The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created. The content ID of the parent virtual disk does not match the corresponding parent content ID in the child

Cannot open the disk 'E:\pc-70\PC-70.klondike.local\PC-70.klondike.local-000130.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Module 'Disk' power on failed.

Failed to start the virtual machine.

 

Latest error while booting to 131. can boot to 2, 130 is the one you had me add. NO go

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a_p_
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>>> Dumb question can a vmdk file be renamed?

Renaming won't help (and would also require modifications within the .vmdk file). Snapshots are used like a chain, i.e. each chain link is important, and contains data that has been modified while that specific was the active/latest one.

Did you already try the disk mount option that I mentioned before, to see what data can be extracted?

André

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a_p_
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>>> The content ID of the parent virtual disk does not match the corresponding parent content ID in the child

Thais error occurs when a .vmdk file in the snapshot gets modified, and is in place to avoid data corruption. The reason for the issue in this case is that you've - from what I understand - booted the VM from the second snapshot by editing the VM's .vmx file.

André

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Cheeseman22
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No I booted the current VM by using the 000002 file that was not deleted. from 3-130 was. On snapshot 2 the machine will boot but not let me recover any older snapshots.

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a_p_
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>>> I booted the current VM by using the 000002 file ...

That's what I mean. By booting the VM from that file, the file contents got modified, and its "CID" got updated, which resulted in a broken snapshot chain you see now. You should see a CID mismatch error in the VM's latest vmware.log.
To fix this, the "parentCID" in 000130.vmdk needs to be set to the "CID" value of 000002vmdk.

André

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Cheeseman22
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Still get the error : "An error occurred while reverting to a snapshot: The file specified is not a virtual disk." while trying to revert to a snap shot.

And this is in place:

parentFileNameHint="PC-70.klondike.local-000002.vmdk"
# Extent description
RW 382298112 SPARSE "PC-70.klondike.local-000130.vmdk"

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a_p_
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Please run Get-VmdkHeader2 again, and attach the compressed/zipped Metadata files to your next reply.

You may also want to check the VM's vmware.log to see whether it contains an error regarding a CID mismatch.

André

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Cheeseman22
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I did not see any mismatched errors. see attached.

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a_p_
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Do to a current issue with the forum platform, ".log" file s currently cannot be opened.

Anyway, there's a CID mismatch as I've expected (see my previous reply), where the "parentCID" in 000130 needs to be set to the new "CID" in 000002. The attached .zip archive contains a fixed version of "PC-70.klondike.local-000130.vmdk".

André

 

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Cheeseman22
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André

 

Well I did get a snapshot to run from 12/30/2021 and it does boot. the programs are there but all of the files are still almost a year old.

Did I not restore the snap shot correctly?We are in a lot better spot now and many thanks but is there anything I can do to find the missing files? I included the logs as txt files sorry about that earlier.

 

 

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a_p_
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Did you already try the "Map virtual Disk" feature in VMware Workstation, that I suggestet earlier? This lets you map a virtual disk/snapshot without powering on the VM.

André

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Cheeseman22
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When I try to mount a virtual disk with machine powered off I get the error "Error Reading volume information.Please select another disk file.

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Cheeseman22
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Is there any way that I could possibly get data out of the snapshots. The data recovery specialists could get nothing off the drive when they tried to recover it. We are basically stuck with the data that remains in  131-172.vmdk but we seem to have no way to access this data. Is there some way to extract data with a recovery program?

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a_p_
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I will try to contact a friend of mine, who is well versed in data recovery, and available tools. Once I get a feedback I let you know.

André

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continuum
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> The data recovery specialists could get nothing off the drive when they tried to recover it. 

Andre asked me to have a look at your case. Can you give me a rough idea of what has been tried so far ?
Can we continue the troubleshooting via Skype + Teamviewer ?

Ulli


________________________________________________
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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Cheeseman22
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We have access to teams will that work?

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continuum
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Were the missing snapshots stored in E:\ ?
What is the amount of unused space in E:\ and how much is in use ?
When did you stop to write to E:\

Ulli


________________________________________________
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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Cheeseman22
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Sorry had to go replace original drive back in machine after recovery attempt. Here is the progression:

1. Dec 31   H: drive reporting full 465 Gb 000003.vmdk - 000130.vmdk deleted 1-2 & 131-174 remain intact.

2. ran paid version of remo recovery software on H: drive. Saved recovered file and whole image on to attached USB elements drive.

3.Pulled the Crucial MX500 solid state drive and sent to Gillware recovery in Madison. They said not data was retrievable.

4. In the time that drive was out for recovery we were working with an exact copy of the drive we sent out to try to extract data.

This is an engineering VM and was supposed to be in back ups but some how the H: drive was NOT backed up so no backup exist.

The original drive has been placed back in the original PC and I have the test drive connected to my machine for testing.

The main concern is that there was an extensive project that had just been worked on and we are looking for a possible way to possibly extract the data in the later snapshots to help possibly rebuild but when we do get the machine to boot we are only able to access file from 1/2021 when the machine was built and snapshots will not attach. What other information would you like. We are very desperate to retrieve any data possible. We are currently using 245 Gb of the 465gb available.

 

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continuum
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What actually deleted the missing *-000***.vmdks ?
User-error ?
Windows-error ?
Hardware-crash ?
other ?

 


________________________________________________
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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Cheeseman22
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User error, thought we were making room on the drive for more snapshots.

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