Restoring VM with Multiple duplicate VMDKs and snapshots
First, Forget Restore As, Not gonna happen in this situation. The following steps will get the VM back up and snapshots deleted.
1. SCP tvzc archive to ESX host and datastore the VM is to be restored to
Using the VCB manual extraction process follow the steps to extract ALL files from the archive with the addition of adding w to the tar command switches (ie. tar xzfw). This will promt before extracting each file. This will give you the opporunity to rename the first flat so that the next flat extracted does not overwrite it. Then continue the extraction process until it reaches the vmdk header files. After extracting the first header file (Actual flat header file, not the snapshot header) rename the file to something unique, just so the process does not overwite it with the next one.
Once all files are extracted, place all VMDKs in thier original datasores (Where they existed when the backup was performed. If one of the VMDKs you renamed is the one that is NOT stored with the VMX file, rename it back to the name it was when it was first extracted, and move it to it's datastore) You can cat the header files for the flats and deltas to find out which belongs to which and in what order. Follow the parent CIDs and the parent file hint.
Register the VM: vmware-cmd -s register vmname.vmx
At this point you should be able to open snapshot manager and remove the snapshot.
