This file is required to power on this virtual machine. If this file was moved, please provide its new location.

[rhufsky]

I have seen this in many threads but I have not found a solution to my problem yet. The problem is:

I have a VM which runs perfectly on VMWare Server on Vista and on VMWare Workstation on XP.

I have copied ALL files of this VM to Mac OS 10.4 / Fusion (external USB drive).

I have set all files of the VM plus the directory it resides in to chmod 777

When I start the VM it tells me "This file is required to power on this virtual machine. If this file was moved, please provide its new location."

It opens the file dialog and I select the file it claims not to find and I get the same message over and over.

Originally the names of the files contained German Umlauts. The VM consists of 52 Files:

VM-XYZ-Qualitätssicherung-cl2-000023-cl2.vmdk

VM-XYZ-Qualitätssicherung-cl2-000023-cl2-s001.vmdk

...

VM-XYZ-Qualitätssicherung-cl2-000023-cl2-s051.vmdk

As the VM was created on XP I suspected that Fusion might have problems with Umlauts created on XP and I renamed all the files to

VM-XYZ-QS-cl2-000023-cl2.vmdk

VM-XYZ-QS-cl2-000023-cl2-s001.vmdk

...

VM-XYZ-QS-cl2-000023-cl2-s051.vmdk

and I changed the name in file Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition.vmx parameter ide0:0.fileName = ...

Again, Fusion insists on not being able to find an existing file that works on a Vista based VMware Server.

So my questions are:

1. Is it possible that Fusion has problems with Umlauts in file names?

2. Is it possible to rename vmdk files as long as every file has the same prefix before the s00x.vmdk and as long as the change is reflected in xxx.vmx?

Or is the name of the vmdk files recorded somewhere in the other vmdk files?

3. What do I have to do ro be able to run this VM? Create a new one?

Thanks for any ideas.

Robert

[WoodyZ]

The "ide0:0.fileName =" must contain the full name of the base or snapshot .vmdk file and not an ellipses "..." as you say you edited the .vmx file to have.

You can not arbitrarily change the name of the .vmdk files without also editing the base .vmdk file to reflect the file name change.

If you changed the name to "VM-XYZ-QS-cl2-000023-cl2.vmdk" then this is the name to use in the .vmx file. (Assuming no snapshot is in place.)

ide0:0.fileName = "VM-XYZ-QS-cl2-000023-cl2.vmdk"

Now open the "VM-XYZ-QS-cl2-000023-cl2.vmdk" file in a Text Editor and you should readily see what you need to edit in this file to make it work with the new file name you're using.

Note: When saving the changes to the base .vmdk file make sure it's being saved as plain text and a .txt file extension is not being added to the file name.

[rhufsky]

Hooray, now it works,

I had the real file name in ide0:0.fileName = , no ellipses. What I hat omitted were the changes in the base vmdk file. I assumed that this is a binary file that I better not touch.

So far I learned:

- The base vmdk file serves as a table of contents which lists all real vmdk files of the VM. This means that I can change the names of the other vmdk files as long as I make sure that the changes are reflected in the base file.

- The ide:0.0.filename entry just points to the base vmdk file.

- And I assume that Fusion does not play really well with file names with german umlauts that have been created on another operating system. As long as there is the above workaround this is not a real problem.

Thanks WoodyZ for the fast and successful help

Robert

[WoodyZ]

I understand what your saying with "I had the real file name in ide0:0.fileName = , no ellipses." however consider this someone is having a problem like you're having and they make a statement like "I changed the .vmx parameter for the the hard disk to "ide0:0.fileName = ..." I'm going to treat this as an erroneous setting in dealing with a technical issue and one must be explicit and specific when asking and answering questions that are technical in nature!

In a Virtual Machine with a split .vmdk yes the base .vmdk file is a text file containing then names of the rest of the virtual hard disk however that is not the case with a monolithic disk. In a monolithic disk that information is embedded in the binary .vmdk as in the example below as seen in 0xED.

In general in the case of an IDE disk the "ide0:0.fileName = " points to the base .vmdk or a Snapshot .vmdk. or the monolithic .vmdk. The same applies to "scsi0:0.fileName = " for SCSI disks.

As to whether or not Fusion does or does not play well with "german umlauts" I can't say because I haven't tried setting my system language to German and then creating a Virtual Machine with a name that contains "german umlauts". What is your Language in OS X set to?

[rhufsky]

You are perfectly right, it was my fault and I was lazy not stating what settings I had in "ide0:0.fileName = ". I am sorry for creating confusion here.

As for the umlauts, the VM has been created by a customer using a German Windows XP and I am using the VM on an English OS X.

I will try to reproduce that by myself ans I will keep you posted.

Thanks again

Robert

[WoodyZ]

I will try to reproduce that by myself ans I will keep you posted.

FWIW I tested creating a Virtual Machine with the name containing umlauts and had no problems creating or running it. I did notice that the contents of base .vmdk file the characters with the umlauts was not written as in the name of the of the .vmdk file itself or the Virtual Machine.

Example was replaced by "ä"

How was it in the original base .vmdk file on yours?

Edit: Note: Forgot to mention I did the test with the language set to English.