VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 .vmdk corrupted in Windows

[fdlchris]

The physical hard disk that the virtual disk was located on was disconnected from the host machine.  This happened whilst deleting a snapshot image from the virtual disk belonging to the guest machine.  This corrupted the state of the virtual disk and resulted in being unable to successfully boot into the guest OS.

Now, when I try to power on the guest machine, I receive the following message:

Cannot open the disk 'Z:\vm\Windows 2000 VM6-000003.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

I have all the existing .vmdk's but do not know how to repair this virtual disk to recover the data on it.  It cannot be mounted with VMWare's in-built virtual disk mounter.  The error states there is a problem loading the volume.

I cannot open the .vmdk with a text editor to modify the CID because the file is too large (>6GB).

I'm using only VMWare Workstation 7.1.4 to manage some simple virtual machines for legacy purposes, on Windows 8.1, so my setup is not too complex.

If anyone can help show me how to repair these disks, I'd very much appreciate it.

[continuum]

Do you get "the parent has been changed" or "the vmdk may be corrupt - try a repair ..."

first issue - read my site VMDK-Handbook-Basics
second issue - run vmware-vdiskmanager -R against ':\vm\Windows 2000 VM6-000003.vmdk

[fdlchris]

Hi,

Thanks for your response.

The error message you quoted was indeed the very first message I got after the physical hard disk that stored the virtual disk was accidentally unplugged whilst VMWare Workstation was in the process of deleting one of the disk's old saved states from the Snapshot Manager.  That's how I ended up in this mess.

However, I no longer get that error message, and instead, now get the error message that I originally posted regarding it can't find one of the snapshot disks it depends on,

Sadly, running -vdiskmanager -R command results in no errors being found against that .vmdk or any of the other .vmdk's associated with that virtual machine.

[a_p_]

As a first step, please post a list of all the VM's files you have, running dir *.* from the command line, to see what's available and how to proceed.

In addition to this, compress/zip the vmware*.log files as well as the VM's .vmx file and attach the archive to a reply post (using the advanced editor).

André

[fdlchris]

caches

vmware-0.log

vmware-1.log

vmware-2.log

vmware-vmx-3256.dmp

vmware.log

Windows 2000 VM6-000001.vmdk

Windows 2000 VM6-000002.vmdk

Windows 2000 VM6-000003.vmdk

Windows 2000 VM6.nvram

Windows 2000 VM6.vmdk

Windows 2000 VM6.vmsd

Windows 2000 VM6.vmx

Windows 2000 VM6.vmxf

I've also included the log files as a .ZIP.  I found something around line 148 in vmware-2.log.

There may be some confusion because I use two 'Windows 2000 VM6' VM's, one labelled 'DEV' on the local drive, and one labelled 'PT' on the storage drive. PT is the problematic one.

[continuum · Accepted solution]

You seem to have used the VM at least once without the snapshots.
Read my notes here: VMDK-Handbook-Basics
Then extract all embedded descriptorfiles and attach them bundled in a zip to your next post.

Or read the instructions for how to fix such problems on the referenced site and fix it yourself

[fdlchris]

I did attempt to start the VM after the  snapshots went "missing", but without any success, resulting in the error I receive now.

I extracted the descriptor files, each with the sequence number to the corresponding  .vmdk.

I did view the descriptors to see if I could understand the parenting structure but due to the nature on how it got messed up, I'm not sure if I would be doing it in the correct order.

[continuum]

set

CID=4393707a
in descriptor.txt
and inject it again

[fdlchris]

@continuum - Many thanks for your help.  I should've worked out the CID from the parentFileNameHint variable in the descriptor file :smileylaugh:, but thank you very much for your help.  I really appreciate it.  Not only did you fix something very important to me, but I've learned some very valuable techniques to resolve this problem in the future if it was to ever occur again.

Many thanks and much appreciated!!