Consolidate a disk with deltas when the virtual machine claims that there are no snapshots in VMware esx 4.x

I’ve recently have and issue with a virtual machine that had not been able to consolidate the deltas in all the disks after a snapshot remove. So I had a virtual machine without snapshots but some disks with deltas.

In esx 4.x you can clone an individual virtual machine disk with or without deltas (Here you can view the KB document that explains how), but if your base disk is large this can take a very long time, and you will need enough free space to clone the disk.

So I’m trying to consolidate the disk in the same way this task is done when you remove a snapshot, these are the steps:

HOW TO: Remove Hidden Devices after HIR

Storagecraft has a document that explains how to remove hidden devices after a HIR (Hardware Independent Restore):

Situation:

This solution details how to show non-present/hidden devices that are often left behind when performing a Hardware Independent Restoreⁱ (HIRⁱ). This can be particularly useful when assigning an IP address for a Domain Controllerⁱ (DC) to correctly connect to Active Directory (AD), as sometimes a non-present network adapter has already been assigned the IP address you need and thus it must be uninstalled.

You may be receiving an IP address conflict error from Microsoft when attempting to assign the correct IP for your DC to access AD (which is a very important step that must be done in active directory recovery mode before fully booting up the machine). This could be caused by a hidden device left behind from the source computer after a HIR.

Solution:

To rectify this issue you will need to do the following two items, preferably in Safe Mode for normal servers and Active Directory restore mode for Domain Controllers (see Step 3 below):

Step 1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
Step 2. At the command prompt, type the following lines, pressing ENTER after each line
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
cd %SystemRoot%/System32
devmgmt.msc

Step 3. In Device Manager go to View | Show hidden devices.
Step 4 Navigate to the network adaptors section. Locate any greyed out or faintly outlined devices - these devices are not present and can safely be removed by right clicking and selecting Uninstall.
Step 5. Active Directory Domain Controllers (DC) require special attention – when the first boot of a restored DC happens hit F8 and select AD restore mode, this ensures that AD will not run. Perform all the steps above and ensure that the correct IP address is configured to the LAN interface; this may take up to two reboots. If this is not done and the server is allowed to boot normally it will sit at the “Preparing Network Connections” stage for a considerable amount of time and possibly still fail.

Additional Information:

This solution can also be used to remove all other devices not present on the new server.