vMware Player - The file specified is not a virtual disk

[josephborg07]

So I was operating on my vm, on vmware player for ubuntu (host), and all of a sudden I got the error 'The file specified is not a virtual disk', when trying to run the vm.

Not sure if this helps, but below are the entries in the log file indicating the error:

2015-03-05T21:34:20.776+01:00| vmplayer| I120: DISKLIB-LINK  : "/media/joey/Used for VMs/Windows 7-vmware.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified). 

2015-03-05T21:34:20.776+01:00| vmplayer| I120: DISKLIB-CHAIN : "/media/joey/Used for VMs/Windows 7-vmware.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).

It would be much appreciated if I get help to recover data within this vmdk as the data on it is rather important.

Thanks in Advanced.

J

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

according to the log file entries "The system cannot find the file specified", the file doesn't exist anymore!? Please check whether the file was renamed, or deleted. It might also be possible that - in case the virtual disk consists of multiple .vmdk files - that one (or more) of the required files are missing. In case you are unsure, please provide a full list of files (the output of ls -lisa).

André

[josephborg07]

Thanks for your reply Andre.

I apologize, it was the wrong 2 lines from the log file. I've had the 'cannot find file specified error before', and it was solved by re-adding the vmdk.

The error this time is "The file specified is not a virtual disk" which is freaking me out as until now I'm still unable to get it to work.

[a_p_]

Is it a single (monolithic) virtual disk, or does it consist of multiple .vmdk files?

To troubleshoot I need some more details, so let's start with a file listing and the information about the virtual disk's provisioned size. In case you still have a vmware*.log file from the time when the VM still worked, please attach it to a reply post.

André

[josephborg07]

Thanks alot for your reply andre

YEs it was a single vmdk file and 100GB in size. The current vmware log file is attached (the vm currently isn't functional)

The vm was still functional until 3 days ago. Where would I find the log file from 3 days ago ?

[a_p_]

What I need is:

• the file listing (run ls -lisa > filelist.txt in the VM's folder)
• the VM's configuration (Windows 7.vmx) file
• the virtual disk file's first 13.172.736 Bytes (extract them using e.g. dd).
  Don't worry, this is only metadata, i.e. no user data.

Once done, compress/zip the 3 files (filelist.txt, Windows 7.vmx, extracted metadata) and attach the zip file to a reply post.

André

[josephborg07]

Hi Andre,

And thanks for your reply. I was unable to extract the number of bytes from the vmdk due to several errors.

However I've attached the filelist.txt and vdx in the zip file. Is it possible to provide you with meta data which I can get through another method ? If not what can I do to help you  with the information.

Thanks in advanced,

J

[a_p_]

I was unable to extract the number of bytes from the vmdk due to several errors.

What kind of errors? Without the extracted data it's impossible to check whether the virtual disk contains errors. Anyway, according to the file list the VM's virtual disk file "Windows 7-vmware2.vmdk" is missing!?

André