From a previous solution to similar question:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Backup-Recovery-Discussions/how-to-restore-data-from-delta-vmdk-without-flat-vmdk/td-p/2749690What's more important is the partition type and the alignment. Unless you know this, I'd suggest you do a first try with an "MBR" partition type, and a "NTFS" formatted "Basic" partition. I'd also suggest you use the default cluster size while formatting the disk, although best practices recommend another cluster size for SQL server.
The good news is that chances to restore files are high due to the size of the delta file, which almost reaches the virtual disk's provisioned size.
Here are the steps:
enable SSH on the ESXi host, and login via e.g. putty
go to the folder with the delta file: cd /vmfs/volumes/<datastore-name>/sql2008-erp
make sure that neither sql2008-erp.vmdk nor sql2008-erp-flat.vmdk already exist!!!
create a new virtual disk: vmkfstools -c 41945715k sql2008-erp.vmdk -d thin
attach the newly created virtual disk to a helper VM, and format it as mentioned above
shut down the helper VM
run cat sql2008-erp.vmdk and make note of the "CID" value
replace the "parentCID" value with the above noted value in the attached sql2008-erp-000002.vmdk file
upload this file to the VM's folder on the datastore
edit the helper VM's configuration (.vmx) file, and replace sql2008-erp.vmdk with sql2008-erp-000002.vmdk
reload the .vmx file as explained in Reloading a vmx file without removing the virtual machine from inventory (1026043) | VMware KB
create another snapshot to ensure that the data in the delta file doesn't get modified
power on the VM and check the result
Note:
To edit the attached .vmdk file, either use an editor which can handle unix line breaks, or upload the file first, and then use the vi editor to edit it. If you are going to use WordPad, make sure that you select .txt as the file format when you save the file!!!