restored VM the wrong way

Carl94580345 41 Reputation points
2026-10-05T20:22:41.22+00:00

About 6 weeks ago, we had our Hyper-V environment become unstable; do to trying to cleanup a VM with thousands of snapshots. Veeam's instructions. Other VMs Hard drive files were corrupted.

We fix Cascade (server name) by restoring the VM files (hard drive files and moved the originals aside), rather than restoring the whole VM.

Since than there have been recovery snapshots from Veeam.

If we try to remove the snapshots, we get an error message about missing checkpoints. The missing checkpoints are not part of the chain anymore and are not needed. What do we do to fix this?

Windows for business | Windows Server | Storage high availability | Virtualization and Hyper-V
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  1. Jason Nguyen Tran 27,370 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-10-05T21:10:01.1+00:00

    Hello

    Based on your description, it appears that after restoring only the VHDX files instead of performing a full VM restore, the Hyper-V configuration and the actual disk chain became out of sync. As a result, Hyper-V and/or Veeam may still have references to checkpoints that no longer exist in the AVHDX chain, which is why snapshot deletion is reporting missing checkpoints.

    The first step is to validate the current virtual disk chain and confirm that all active VHDX/AVHDX files are properly attached and that no orphaned checkpoint references remain in the VM configuration. If the VM is running correctly and the missing checkpoints are truly no longer part of the disk chain, a common resolution is to export the VM, remove the existing VM configuration (without deleting the disks), and then re-import or recreate the VM using the current healthy VHDX files. This often rebuilds the VM configuration and eliminates stale checkpoint metadata.

    I would also recommend reviewing the Hyper-V Event Logs and comparing the VM configuration against the physical disk files to identify any lingering checkpoint references. Before making any changes, please ensure a current backup and VM-level export are available in case rollback is required.

    If the issue persists after validating the chain, may need to investigate the VM configuration files and Veeam metadata in greater detail to determine where the invalid checkpoint references are being maintained.

    I hope the response provided some helpful insight. If you find this answer useful, please hit “accept answer” so I know it addressed your concern.

    Jason

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