can renaming a file or a directory on VMFS delete the file ?

[continuum]

I am investigating a strange issue ...

A user running ESX4i had used VEEAM Fastscp to rename a directory and a few files on VMFS. After doing this he refreshed the view in Datastorebrowser and suddenly noticed that 3 *-flat.vmdks are mssing now.

We searched the whole VMFS volume and did not find them again.

Also Datstorebrowser shows the diskspace occupied by this 3 flat vmdks as free space now.

The user claims to have not used any rm commands.

Is there any way to find those "lost" vmdks again ?

Thanks Ulli

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VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[TobiasKracht]

Once we have faced with problem of missing vmdk-flat files, called VmWare they said that such things happens.

Also -flat files are not shown in datastore browser, check them in service console.

StarWind Software R&D

[continuum]

I am aware that datstorebrowser "cheats" when displaying so I checked on the console as well.

The flat-files are no longer visible when using ls from the console.

Were you able to recover those files that you lost ?

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VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[NTurnbull]

Interesting - was it just the flat.vmdk's missing, were the .vmx etc still there?

Thanks,

Neil

[continuum]

Interesting indeed ... but to the user its a nightmare

the case happened like this

user renames vmx, nvram and vmsd inside a directory listing of Fastscp 3.0.1

He also renamed the directory on the source .

Then he shift-clicked those couple of small files and dragged them to another ESXi also open in Fastscp.

This was supposed to be a test - he wanted to copy the flat.vmdks when test worked.

Test worked fine and the small few files were copied in a minute.

Then he changed tback to the source directory in Fastscp and there three * -flat.vmdks were gone.

The loss occured in a matter of seconds so we are pretty sure that the files have not been wiped.

Also we can recover single unfragmented files by reading the VMFS as raw.

Interesting is that the java Fvmfs driver also can not list the flat.vmdks.

ls on the ESXi console does not show anything either ....

Veeam forum says its a known issue - do NOT use Fastscp against ESXi before next version of Fastscp.

At the moment I would try anything - so keep suggestions coming

Ulli

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VMX-parameters- VMware-liveCD - VM-Sickbay

[Gostev]

I did some testing last night and was unable to confirm any issues around ESXi 4 and FastSCP 3.0.1.266. I can see and copy all files, including -flat.vmdk files. Renaming folders is not causing any deletions either. Make sure you have the latest FastSCP release (3.0.1 build 266 released on July 7th) - as previous versions of FastSCP do not support vSphere at all...