Mount a delta.vmdk to recover data

[sdietz]

Hi All,

I am looking for a way to recover data on a delta.vmdk file I have. Basically what has happened in the past week is a VM got whipped out and I had to restore from some files I had manually backed up. I didn't have all snapshots or delta.vmdk files but I was able to restore the data on the -flat.vmdk file. I ended up missing about 20gigs of data but I have the delta.vmdk file (_{20GB) that I would like to recover data from. I also have the most recent snapshot file manually backed up before the disaster. From what I have read, there is a way to create a new VM, mount the delta.vmdk (}20GB) as a new harddrive and then just manually copy the folders and files off. How can I accomplish this?

Thanks!!

[sdietz]

Hey f10,

Yes, we were able to. Thanks for your help as well. I was just getting ready to post a link to this discussion from our previous one. I also ending up getting a pay per supoprt session with VMWare becuase my vSphere wouldn't connect to the ESXi server. That turned out to be because of a corrupt .vmx file. Either way it was worth the $300 as I feel more confiedent in my VMWare skills and best practices. The VMWare communities is really one of kind.

[RaysonW]

Hi Andre,

If the snapshot files did not have the vmsn file, can the command still be used to restore the snapshot?

Also, I lost the vmsd file and I am trying to create one.  However, I am not sure if the role of createTimeHigh and createTimeLow in the snapshot.  Can I calculate these 2 value based on the timestamp of the snapshot vmdk and delta.vmdk files?

Thanks,

Rayson

[tjohnson0212]

Hi, I am having a similar issue where I was using snapshots at first then when a proper backup system was implmented I removed the snapshots. Come to find out a few months later the delta files was never deleted. So I then before thinking proceeded to delete the delta files after deleting the first one I then thought what if it was still attached to the main hdd so I tried to boot and of course it did not boot so I finally got it to boot with out the delta files by re-adding the Orignal Flate-file and it booted but july 1st data so A whole month was missing I recovered from a backup but 2 weeks of data is still missing and I need to know if It could be pulled of of the latest delta file which I still have.

[continuum]

Deleting delta files manually should only be done if you completely understand how the current snapshot-chain is build and which files are used.

Get files out of delta-files ? - yes - that is possible but not trivial.

We need to know exactly what files you have, what filesystem was used on the original VM and how exactly it was partitioned