Deleted VMware image..

[Monarchs_05]

While performing a clean up on my PC I was deleting unused images and deleted the image I use daily.

I was able to recover most files but the .vmx was missing.

The good news is I have an older version of the same Image,

I tried copying the .vmx but now I get the error " The file specified is not a virtual disk"

Help please!!!

[RDPetruska]

Attach the vmx file, the latest vmware.log file, and a directory listing of the contents of that VM's folder.

[Monarchs_05]

Here are the files as requested.

I suspect there may be files from the more than one Image in the resored files dir(?)

Thank you

[a_p_]

Some of the files are indeed missing, but it should be possible to at lease make the VM work again so that you can access most of the guest's files, and run a backup. It may even be possible to fix the guest file system using the chkdsk /f command, but you'll definitely have some data loss due to the missing files.

According to the .vmx files, and time stamps you posted, it looks like the snapshot chain is:

"Windows 7 x64 - Base-000003.vmdk" -> "Windows 7 x64 - Base-000001.vmdk" -> "Windows 7 x64 - Base.vmdk"

In this case, the "Windows 7 x64 - Base-000001-s0##.vmdk" from the earlier backup can be used, i.e. be copied over to the restored VM's folder.

The two missing files - "Windows 7 x64 - Base-000003-s021.vmdk", and "Windows 7 x64 - Base-000003-s038.vmdk" - may be replaced with an "empty" sparse file. Simply copy one of the 327,680 bytes .vmdk files, and rename it.

With all files in place, I'd recommend that the first thing you do (assuming that you already backed up all the files) is to create another snapshot before you try to power on the VM. This way, none of the current files will be modified.

André

[Monarchs_05]

Thanks for the reponce.

2 quick questions:

1. should I copy and replace all 41 of the Windows 7 x64 - Base-000001-s0##.vmdk files?

2 I notice that the missing files are in the original prior version. Should I copy these over also or copy the empty files and rename per your directions?

Thanks!

[Monarchs_05]

I copied all the files from the prior saved image into the restored folder (with prefix Windows 7 x64 - Base-000001-s0##.vmdk)

Also created 2 empty files for missing files #21 and #38.

Get the error below in the capture when trying to make a snapshot.

Note no Volume size for the hard drive still...

Still unable to run the image..

Ideas?

[a_p_]

Please close VMware Workstation, or at least the VM's tab to ensure that the VM's files were re-read?

If the error still occurs, please double-check that the base disk, as well as the 2 snapshot disks contain the s001 trough s041 .vmdk files each.

If all required files exist, there might be an issue with either the descriptor files (less likely), or with one or more of the restored data files.

In this case, please download dsfok.zip from http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=47&id=111&artlang=en, extract the executables, run the below mentioned command in the VM's folder, then compress/zip all the "xxx-....bin" files along with the 3 descriptor .vmdk files (the ones without s### in their name), and attach the resulting .zip file to a reply post.

for %i in (*-s???.vmdk) do @dsfo.exe "%i" 0 1536 "xxx-%~ni.bin"

The command will extract only metadata (i.e. no user data) from the .vmdk files.

André