> However, the ssd disk is only 500GB, so that's why I have the vm limited to 240GB.
Reading that statement I think you slightly missunderstand what the 240gb value really means.
If you create a VM with a vmdk with a size of 240gb this first of all means that the guestOS thinks it has a 240Gb harddisk.
As long as you dont have snapshots the vmdk indeed can not get larger than those 240GB.
This changes as soon as snapshots are involved. Each snapshot itself can grow up to 240gb and with your 2 snapshots the size of the complete VM can grow up to 3 x 240gb =720gb.
Running defragmentation-tools inside the guest can expand the actual used size significantly - so avoid using such tools if a VM has snapshots.
By deleting the 2 snapshot-vmdks with Windows-explorer you actually did the opposite of what you wanted to do:
Unfortunately the choice of the labels on the snapshot-manager is a bit misguiding.
Delete in snapshotmanager actually means "merge data inside the snapshots into the basedisk"
If you delete the files with Windows-explorer this means "discard data from inside the snapshots"
So you just deleted the data you added to your VM since you created the snapshot !
This is confusing but you have to get used to it as soon as possible.
To be able to start your VM again open the vmx-file with a texteditor like notepad+ and find a line that has an entry like
scsi0:0.fileName = "Windows 7-000002.vmdk"
change that line to
scsi0:0.fileName = "Windows 7.vmdk"
and safe the vmx-file.
Then delete all *.vmsn, *.vmss and *.vmsd files from the directory.
Now your VM should be able to start again but it will be in a state of 17.12.2019
Thats just 2 days back so probably quite acceptable.
Use this as a lesson and avoid deleting snapshots from windows-explorer manually in future.
Ulli
