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VMDKs and Snapshots


tips and tricks for creation and repair of virtual disks ...
when it is too late
disktypes-table ...
often used procedures ...



often used procedures

Often used procedures is a joke of course - anyway - this is a rough summary of the procedures I found to be useful on windows-hosts. Most of them may be translated to Linux-hosts.
Hope to add syntax-examples for dd soon.

procedure required tools short description
extract vmx-file from a log text-editor see

use sample from list

 

text-editor take a sample from the list and replace entries with disk-specs
mentioned in the last usable vmware.log
extract with dsfo.exe dsfo.exe example-syntax
dsfo.exe test.vmdk 512 800 descriptor.txt
inject with dsfi.exe dsfi.exe example-syntax
dsfi.exe test.vmdk 512 800 descriptor.txt
fix PATH-chain text-editor  
fix CID-chain text-editor see example
fake basedisk vmware-vdiskmanager
text-editor
 
expand fsz.exe  
cut rsz.exe  
mount with vdk vdk.exe use read-only mode for first tests
keep in mind: vdk.exe doesn't change CIDs so you CAN use it to
look into vmdks without risk to mess up a snapshot-chain
- as long as you dont set /rw parameter
restore data getdataback-ntfs
and similar tools
 
     
Plan B getdataback-ntfs
and similar tools
copy corrupted vmdk/parts into a blank large vmdk formatted with the same filesystem - mount with vdk and use forensic tools
     
vmx-entry
to fix disk with holes
 

A VM with sparse disks may show errors like:
DISKLIB-SPARSECHK: [/home/user/vmware/XP-VM/xp.vmdk] GT Error (EE): [476][4]
and crash ...

Try to use this vmx-entry for the next start (only use this once - your vmdk is broken and you should copy your data to a safe location as soon as possible)

diskLib.legacyCheckerTolerateHoles=TRUE
read

     
     
     
multiple expand vmware-vdiskmanager
text-editor

virtual disks in CD-size slices

 

You want to backup your virtual machines with the help of CDs but have trouble with the large files?
Well that can be changed.

Create a new disk with vmware-vdiskmanager and run multiple expand actions like this ...




vmware-vdiskmanager -c -a ide -s 670Mb -t 1 cd-slices-disk.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 1340Mb cd-slices-disk.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 2010Mb cd-slices-disk.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 2680Mb cd-slices-disk.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 3350Mb cd-slices-disk.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 4020Mb cd-slices-disk.vmdk
vmware-vdiskmanager -x 4690Mb cd-slices-disk.vmdk


 


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