vmx and logs gone for Virtual Machine

[escapem2]

hi guys

I got a VM which is up and running but from vCenter View is inaccessible

taking a look at the Datastore I see the Virtual Machine is missing .vmx file and logs files, so I already schedule a maintenance windows for my customer, but i just want to be sure about this:

- Shutdown VM

- Remove from inventory

- create a new VM and Add the Existing virtual disk

- Power on VM everything should be fine

Basically follow this KB

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100229...

Or I should be worried about the vmdks consistency?

thanks a lot

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

>>> Or I should be worried about the vmdks consistency?

Less about the consistency, but more about the missing header/descriptor .vmdk files! It looks like someone tried to delete the VM's files from the datastore, but due to the file locks only some of the files were deleted. Depending on the used backup application, you may be able to recover the missing files from the backup. If not, you could e.g. follow VMware KB: Recreating a missing virtual machine disk descriptor file, or  create a new VM in a lab environment (with the same name, configuration and disk sizes) and use e.g. WinSCP to download the .vmx and the .vmdk descriptor files. If you don't have sufficient disk space in the lab, create thin provisioned virtual disks and then edit the descriptor files (remove ddb.thinProvisioned = "1")

André

[escapem2]

Thanks André

yeah I have a recovered the VM but I cannot use it for production since is like 6 days old but it has all the files well I mean it has the .vmx but about vmdk header/descriptor, you mean I vi this recovered vmdks and copy to the ones being "orphan"?

thanks

[escapem2]

this was the way to go

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100251...