Orphaned Snapshot

[Mark_Struggling]

Hi

I am fairly new to all this so sorry if my terms are incorrect.

I've been tasked with recovering some orphaned machine after a recent outage. The VMs won't start but all the data is there. I can get the machine going by creating a new one and adding the existing hard drive just fine.

The issue is the snapshots. I've no idea how to merge these back.

I've read you can take another snapshot and consolidate after this, however I prefer to be cautious so have tried to copy the contents of the old VM datastore to another datastore, everything copies across apart from the specific snapshot00x.vmdk

tldr

1. Merging snapshots into a recovered orphan machines    

2. Can't copy snapshot vmdk

v6.5

Thanks

Mark

[continuum]

> I can get the machine going by creating a new one and adding the existing hard drive just fine.
When you do that it is crucial to assign the correct vmdk-file to the new VM.
Very often folks assign the base disk (name.vmdk) while they should have assigned the snapshot instead. (name-00000*.vmdk)
If you do not assign the latest snapshot and accidentaly select the basedisk - you run a high chance to corrupt the integrity of the snapshot chain.
Provide details and we can tell you how to attack such a problem.

[Mark_Struggling]

Thanks

That was really helpful, most of the machines are now up and running.

1 however appears to have the issue you describe: VMware Knowledge Base

Manage to fix it using the guide provided.

Thanks again!

Mark

[continuum]

I highly recommend to use the embedded editor of WinSCP to adjust the CID-values in the vmdk descriptorfiles.

[Mark_Struggling]

Thanks for the suggestion, hadn't thought of that.

I was being overly cautious so download, edited and uploaded to a new data-store, will clear up once the machines have been verified.

[continuum]

The usual procedure is to download the vmdk descriptor files to your admin host.
If you then use a poor texteditor you mess up the Linux line endings of those files.
With WinSCP you do not need to download them at all - instead you can use a graphical texteditor directly and you can be sure that the format does not get messed up.

[Himadri]

Follow KB 1007969