Recover deleted Workstation VM

[Markus72]

Hi,

In a rush of cleaning up a partition for space, I managed to delete a vmware VM that is very important to my kids and I. (very bad by me )

I'm using vmware workstation 8.

I have used "Recover My Files" and retrieved what looks like the missing VM files, though initially they were saved as modified versions of the original files, i.e. the filenames were slightly changed:-

e.g. r2d2-0_vmdk.TXT

So I renamed the files to what I think to be their correct names.

e.g. r2d2-0.vmdk

Then I first ran the r2d2.vmx file and got the following error:-

Could not open virtual machine: K:\recovered_files_3\Virtual Machines\XP_VM\r2d2.vmx

Dictionary problem.

I found out I needed to remove the r2d2.vmsd file as it held the previous snapshot info. After removing that file, vmware created a new one and the VM appeared in vmware in the off state.

When I tried to power on the vm I got this error:-

Unable to open file "K:\recovered_files_3\Virtual Machines\XP_VM\r2d2-0.vmdk": One of the disks in this virtual machine is already in use by a virtual machine or by a snapshot.

And that's where I'm stuck. Any help of how to get this vm up and running again would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Markus

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

to start with, please provide the following to find out what can be done:

• a complete list of files in the VM's folder (i.e. the output of dir *.* /oen)
• the *.log files
• the .vmx file
• the .vmdk file(s) - depending on the file format, i.e. only in case of small descriptor/text files

Please compress/zip the files and attach the compressed .zip file to a reply post (click the Use advanced editor link in the upper right corner of the reply box).

André

[Markus72]

Thanks for the reply André.

Thanks for the reply Here is a list of the files I've recovered and renamed.

r2d2.vmsd

r2d2.vmx

r2d2.vmxf

r2d2-0.vmdk

r2d2-0-s001.vmdk - 1.4GB

r2d2-0-s002.vmdk - 68MB

r2d2-0-s003.vmdk

r2d2-0-s004.vmdk

r2d2-0-s005.vmdk

r2d2-0-s006.vmdk

r2d2-0-s007.vmdk

r2d2-0-s008.vmdk

r2d2-0-s009.vmdk

r2d2-0-s010.vmdk

r2d2-0-s011.vmdk

r2d2-0-s012.vmdk

r2d2-0-s013.vmdk

r2d2-0-s014.vmdk

r2d2-0-s015.vmdk

r2d2-0-s016.vmdk

r2d2-0-s017.vmdk

r2d2-0-s018.vmdk

r2d2-0-s019.vmdk

r2d2-0-s020.vmdk

r2d2-0-s021.vmdk

r2d2-8a7f7a1a.vmem - 3.1GB

r2d2-8a7f7a1a.vmss - 132MB

vmware.log - 120MB

vmware-0.log - 72MB

vmware-1.log

I can't attached a zip of the whole VM as some parts are too large. I've attached as much as I could, keeping under the 50MB limit (couldn't fit r2d2-0-s001.vmdk and r2d2-8a7f7a1a.vmem.

Thanks and regards,

Markus

Message was edited by: a.p. - Removed files with user data from the attachment.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

There seem to be a couple of issues.

• Lots of error messages about a corrupt virtual disk ("Disk needs repair")
• The VM originally consisted of 2 virtual disks, but the first one "r2d2.vmdk" with ~85.5GB is missing!?
• The .vmx file contains entries for 2 virtual disks, which both point to the second one "r2d2-0.vmdk", the one you restored. However, scsi0:0 should point to the currently missing virtual disk.

Unless you can recover the missing virtual disk "r2d2.vmdk" (which is a single file), your options are limited. What you may try to do is to mount the restored virtual disk to the host using File -> Map virtual disk ... from the VMware Workstation menu to see whether you can at least extract important data.

André

[Markus72]

Thank you for being so helpful and quick to reply André, I really appreciate it.

I'll try another recovery to see if I can get the missing file, otherwise I'll try to restore it as you suggested.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Regards,

Markus

[Markus72]

André, you've saved the day

I was only able to find a zero byte file for the "r2d2.vmdk", so tried to mount the restored 40GB virtual disk in Workstation "File -> Map virtual disk ..." as you suggested. To my extreme happiness it mounted and all the important files I was hoping to get back were on the 40GB partition.

Thank you very much for you help and quick replies.

Regards,

Markus