ok this is the situation (ESXi 5 /VSphere client):
VM (WS2008) didn't boot anymore.
I've managed to download via Data Storage Browser the big SERVER-flat.vmdk file plus 14 out of 15 other file sets containing snapshots.
(SERVER-000002.vmdk to SERVER-000015.vmdk + SERVER-000002-delta.vmdk to SERVER-000015-delta.vmdk).
However there was no way to save SERVER-00001.vmdk and the associated delta file and then the server failed completely (data corruption after the failure of one disk in the Raid array, etc.)
I've rebuild the server on another machine from the -flat file (renaming FILENAME inside SERVER.VMX from SERVER-000015 to SERVER) but this brings me back to the initial server configuration (one year ago).
When I try to add the snapshot files (even renaming the 000002 into 000001 or editing the vmdk file (ParentFileNameHint) it always returns an error.
Error message from esxi502: Reason: The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created. The content ID of the parent virtual disk
does not match the corresponding parent content ID in the child.
Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/51312345-e57af280-etc-etc/SERVER.domain.it/Server-000002.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
Question 1: Is there any way to incorporate the snapshots, jumping from SERVER-000002 to SERVER.vmdk, seeing that the first one is missing?
Question 2: is there any program that can read/recover data from single vmdk files? (tried already Systools VMware recovery but this does not work with files saved from VM to local disk as the support explained to me)
Any help would be highly appreciated as I'm desperate, not very familiar with VMware and the data is crucial for us.
Thanks a lot!