Error on restore

[mikemccloskey]

I am trying Vimalin on my Fusion machine. It archives without error; so far my test restores end with an error. How can I go about trouble shooting this?

VMWare Fusion 10.1.6
VM Size is 365GB (i know it is big)

TIA

[wila]

Hi,

The log view should have the details about the error.
Eg. when you start up go to "options" -> then in the bottom left click on the "Log" icon and in the bottom right change from "Normal" viewing mode to "Details" and it should tell you why it thinks that the restore wasn't successful.

Alternatively -or if the error doesn't make sense- you can email me the support bundle (menu -> Help -> Create Support Bundle ) and I'll take a look at it.

--
Wil

[mikemccloskey]

thanks

First, I was wrong, it is VMWare Fusion 11.5.1
Even though the restore had a error, the restored machine does 'seem' to operate properly
The only error is 'Failed completed restore failed tests'

I will send the bundle

[wila]

For anyone reading along.

Received the bundle and by inspecting the log files I discovered that some of the virtual disk slices had a different MD5 hash on the restore.

What this means is that the restored VM was not identical to the original VM when the backup was made.
Apparently the restored VM did boot, but it was correct of Vimalin to say that there was an error on restore.

Here's a slightly longer explanation (sorry copy&paste of a part of my answer by email):

A virtual machine is basically just a bunch of files. The virtual disk(s) of the virtual machine takes up most of the space.
As it is very important for a virtual machine to be completely correctly backed up, Vimalin will make a so called MD5 hash file of each file before it saves that file to the backup disk.
The MD5 hash can be seen as a signature of that file. It also calculates the MD5 hash of each file after it is copied back from the backup disk on a restore operation.
Vimalin compares both signatures/hashes while performing that restore.

If there's a bit flip or any other change in the file(s) backed up that is different from the original then that means that the MD5 hash is different and as a result Vimalin considers the restore failed.
In your log it has found problems with the restores of a few virtual disk slices.
In other words, there are differences in the data between when it was backed up and when the files are restored.
If you are seeing this with one external disk then most likely that external disk has problems and I suggest to try another disk.
If you are seeing this with more then just one disk then there might be another problem.
One thing that comes to my mind in that case is faulty RAM and for that scenario I would suggest to run a hardware check.

Summary:
What I saw in the log file isn't a bug in Vimalin from what I can see, but it appears to be a hardware issue of some kind on your end.
I do not have control over that I'm afraid.

If there's follow up questions or remarks then please do let me know.

--
Wil