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AnDublin
Contributor
Contributor

Scared of deleting the wrong virtual disk

Windows server with virtual hard disks added and removed over time, now has 13, and I need to delete some.

There's no particular logic to scsi id numbers.

Disk management in windows shows all just as Disk 0 to Disk 12.

How can I be absolutely certain in Virtual Infrastructure Client, which virtual disk number is which Windows disk number?

Some of the drives are about a terabyte in size, so restore isn't easy if I get it wrong!

Help appreciated.

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5 Replies
dominic7
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

When you edit settings on the VM, just remove ( don't delete ) the disk that you think is correct and power the VM back on. If everything looks ok you can delete it through the 'browse datastore functionality' or from the command line. If it doesn't look ok put it back where it used to be. You should also take a backup of the .vmx for that VM so you know how the disks names and scsi IDs are related.

AnDublin
Contributor
Contributor

Getting to "the disk that I think is correct" is the problem, though.

Too many have the same size, no way to guess which is the correct one.

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Kahonu84
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Change the size of the disk(s) you want to delete to some weird size - ie instead of 60gb, make them 63gb.

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kjb007
Immortal
Immortal

As dominic stated, just remove from the vm settings the similar size disks one disk at a time. It will take some time, but you'll know exactly which one is gone when you boot up.

-KjB

vExpert/VCP/VCAP vmwise.com / @vmwise -KjB
AnDublin
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks All, Helpful answers.

Along the way, I found that I could be sure which drive was which by the following:

Windows Disk Manager sorts disks in Scsi Id order, nearly. But it sorts 0,1,10,11,12,13,2,3, and so on.

So First ensure that each virtual Harddisk1, harddisk2 etc is using an increasing Scsi number,

Also ensure that you don't us a scsi id of 10 or higher, Split to separate scsi controllers if needed.

And note that VI client seems to have a problem and re-mixes them up unless done one at a time.

Then power on the virtual machine,

Windows Disk Manager will see the disks in the same order as VI client.

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