Repair a Virtual Drive?

[Catsrules]

All of my virtual drives on one of my Physical drives, some how got corrupted. Luckly is was a secondary drive, so it wasn't to bad of a data loss but I would like the data back.

As far as I could tell the physical drive is ok, I ran a scan on the drive and it came up ok.  On the Physical drive can see all of the folder and the files on the drive, but I just can't open any of the virtual drives or copy them.

[a_p_]

Are there any error messages or timeouts when you try to access/copy the files?

André

[Catsrules]

Thanks for the quick responce

When I try to open one of the drives is get this

When I try to copy it I get "connection to server has timed out"

Also, I had one virtual machine that was all on the drive, it is showing as

"Unknows (invalid)" for the name of Machine, and I can't see any of it's settings.

[idle-jam]

can you scroll to the right and screen-shot it as well, it's telling the reason there ..

[Catsrules]

Yeah Sorry

Reason: 22 (Invalid argument).
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/4d3e2ef7-0462f71a-be7b-00142218a64e/File Server/File Server_2.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

I don't have any snapshots, on anyof the drives by the way

[idle-jam]

weird, looks like it's looking for a snapshot drive in order to be power up. can you ensure there is not snapshot in the snapshot manager screen? another way is to clone using vcenter or perform a vmware converter v 2 v clone and hopefully the needs of snapshot is not longer required after the clone.

[continuum]

maybe the descriptor vmdks - (the small 2kb large vmdk files) have a syntax error or are wiped blank ?
can you download one of them and post it - or check if they are blank

did you try to recover the files with a Ubuntu-LiveCD ?

[Catsrules]

There are no snapshots in the snapshot manager. I will try to look at vcenter next, to see if I can get it.

I can't find any small vmdks files. Where are they located?

I have tryed to open on of the Vdrive with another virtural machine, still get the same error.

No I haven't try to recover any files with ubultu. how to do you that?

[continuum]

you will find the small vmdk files with ssh or winscp - the datastorebrowser does not display vmdk files correctly

[Catsrules]

Ok I think I found it.

this is what was in the file

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
encoding="UTF-8"
CID=c6910b07
parentCID=ffffffff
isNativeSnapshot="no"
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description
RW 734003200 VMFS "File Server_2-flat.vmdk"

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"
ddb.longContentID = "96e0624eb2aa156a015657eec6910b07"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 92 10 4d 1e 2d-67 ec 2c 42 3a 0f 93 ed"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "45689"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.thinProvisioned = "1"
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"

[continuum]

thats ok
can you attach a vmware.log of a VM that has this problem ?

[Catsrules]

Well I hit a dead end, on vcenter. When I try to look at any virtual machines, it saids unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine.

I tryed to export a ODF templat as well but I get a 404 file not found error when it gets to the bad drive.

[Catsrules]

Ok Here it is

[a_p_]

In ESXi each virtual disk consists of two files by default, even though the datastore browser dispays each virtual disk as only one file. The header file "File Server_2.vmdk" and the data file "File Server_2-flat.vmdk" in your case. Do you see the data file in the VM's folder? What size is it?

André

[depping]

if you do happen to have support, drop VMware a call!

Duncan (VCDX)

Available now on Amazon: vSphere 4.1 HA and DRS technical deepdive

[Catsrules]

Ok I am looking at the folder via https in a web browser. I see two files, like you said File Server_2-flat.vmdk and File Server_2.vmdk.

I am confused on the size, it doens't give me units I am guessing it is in bytes.

The File Server_2-flat.vmdk 375809638400 (375GB?)

The File server_2.vmdk is 502 (.5KB?)

In vsphere client, that vdrive has used 166GB and provisioned sizes of 367GB.

yeah I am just a home user, so no support for me.

[DSTAVERT]

Remember the magic number 1024. Don't use 1000 in calculating size.

[Catsrules]

How do you recover the files with Ubuntu?

I am connected the drive to a Ubuntu computer, but it can't understand the format of the dive. Is there a patch or something I can install?

[continuum · Accepted solution]

install vmfs-tools with synaptic - and read the man page

I usually simply use a Ubuntu LiveCd directly booting the ESX and attach a large USB-disk to copy the vmdks to

[Catsrules]

All right I got it working, it is copying the file right now!

hopfuly I will be able to open them, when they are finished. Keeping finger crossed.