The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created.

[gThomas20111014]

Hi Community,

sorry for the x-posting with here http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-14466

Again, i hope in the correct Forum

Hi Community,

i read many postings about this failure, but no one of them can bring me a solutiuon for my problem.

Hopefully someone can help me:

Product: VMWare Workstation 7.0.0 build-203739 on Windows 7 64-bit

I have an Virual Machine (Linux), forgotten that i acitvate the Snapshots and do an diskexpand like i have it done often before (activating snapshots):

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -x 33GB "D:\VM\SUSE Linux 11.1\SUSE Linux 11.1.vmdk"

  Grow: 100% done.

Disk expansion completed successfully.

After Starting the VMWare Workstation, wondering why the Filesize at the HardDisk is empty (screenshot1).

After Starting the VM, i get the Failure "The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created."

At the Screenshot2 you can see the files in the Folder

Attached the last logfile.

I found this http://sanbarrow.com/vmdk-howtos.html#editvmdk

The Result of

dsfo.exe "SUSE Linux 11.1.vmdk" 512 1024 SUSELinux11.1.vmdk_descriptor.txt

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

encoding="windows-1252"

CID=89e472df

parentCID=ffffffff

isNativeSnapshot="no"

createType="monolithicSparse"

# Extent description

RW 69206016 SPARSE "SUSE Linux 11.1.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.deletable = "true"

ddb.toolsVersion = "7428"

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"

ddb.longContentID = "5d8097a670e79efd27e141830f5b73d4"

ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9d f2 5f de d9-81 91 dd e8 49 b9 3d df"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "4307"

ddb.geometry.heads = "255"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"

and

dsfo.exe "SUSE Linux 11.1-000001.vmdk" 512 1024 SUSELinux11.1.vmdk-000001_descriptor.txt

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

encoding="windows-1252"

CID=92382caf

parentCID=89e472df

isNativeSnapshot="no"

createType="monolithicSparse"

parentFileNameHint="SUSE Linux 11.1.vmdk"

# Extent description

RW 52428800 SPARSE "SUSE Linux 11.1-000001.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.longContentID = "ff86190f51ff59da1a6b9e5d92382caf"

The last Size of the Hardisk was 25GB:

The commando i used:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -x 25GB "D:\VM\SUSE Linux 11.1\SUSE Linux 11.1.vmdk"

Hope anyone can help me.

Thanks in advance

Thomas

[gThomas20111014]

Hi Again,

now i found this:

http://sanbarrow.com/vmdk-errors.html#e4

In case a VM with snapshots does not start anymore because a basedisk was expanded you have two options:

- undo the expand of the basedisk

- expand the snapshot

Thesecond option only makes sense with VMs that only have one snapshot - I would not recommend this

In most cases it is very probably easier to undo the expand of the basedisk.

How can I "undo the expand of the basedisk"?

Thanks

Thomas

[continuum]

Hi Thomas

I just answered to your post in the german forum - lets continue there

Ulli

[MauroBonder]

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1007969

[continuum · Accepted solution]

Mauro - that kb does not apply.

In this case I will do the following:
expand snapshot
fix CID
consolidate snapshots with vmware-vdiskmanager

thats a bit more advanced then the stuff from the kb

[gThomas20111014]

Thank you for the support continuum. Works fine!

Thomas

[MauroBonder]

ok sorry man

[continuum]

hey Mauro - no need to apologize - not at all.

here is what I did in short:

basedisk and snapshot were one-piece vmdks so I extracted the descriptors of both vmdks with dsfo.exe
CIDs and parentCID values of basedisk and snapshot were ok - nothing to do.
So I changed the extend description of the snashot to match the new size.
I also cleaned up un-needed entries in both vmdk-files.
After the edit I injected both descriptors again with dsfi.exe

Now Workstation accepted the snapshot-chain again.

Next I did NOT start the VM and instead consolidated the snapshot with vdiskmanager.

When that was done the user booted the VM into gparted.iso and expanded the partition.

All done

[MauroBonder]

ok. thanks for your report/explanation!

[WoodyZ]

I also cleaned up un-needed entries in both vmdk-files.

Ulli, what entries were deemed "un-needed"?

[continuum]

when I do snapshot repair like in this case I usually delete this entries

isNativeSnapshot="no"

ddb.longContentID =  "5d8097a670e79efd27e141830f5b73d4"

ddb.uuid =  "60 00 C2 9d f2 5f de d9-81 91 dd e8 49 b9 3d df"

ddb.deletable = "true"

in case I have ESX VMs I also delete
# Change Tracking File
changeTrackPath="server03-000004-ctk.vmdk"
I also delete

ddb.toolsVersion = "7428"

if not all of the involved vmdks have the same value defined

[WoodyZ]

Makes sense, thanks.