Windows 10 x64 VM Player Corruption

[JustOneQuestion]

Edit: Originally thought the vm was not on C:(os installation), but it turns out it is.  Sorry for misinformation.

Just wanted to post this here and know if I am the only one who is having this problem.  Or, if my SSD host is going to die soon.  Or maybe my sata3 cable is almost dead?  Samsung Magician shows healthy.  Checked ram (its fine).

When I make a windows 10 x64 VM using vmplayer 12.1.1-3770994.exe, everything seems to be hunky dory.  Then the symptoms start to happen ...  NOTE: This vm resides on C:(main OS installation). Host is Windows 7 pro x64.

First symptom:  Shutting down the OS takes a while.

Second symptom: Shutting down the OS takes a while + another long while and then a dialog box pops up that says:

[<VM TITLE> - VMware Workstation 12 Player]

The operation on file "<path>\s008.vmdk" failed.

If the file resides on a remote file system, make sure that the network connection

and the server where the disk resides are function properly.  If the file resides

on the removable media, reattach the media.

Select Retry to attempt the operation again.

Select Cancel to end this session.

Select Continue  to forward the error tot he guest operating system.

[Retry] [Continue] [Cancel].

Third symptom: This popup will continue, eventually "Retry" and/or "Continue" no longer works, and must "Cancel".

Fourth symptom: Corruption occurs soon enough.

Lost.

[scott28tt · Accepted solution]

Moderator note: Discussions specific to products get better visibility in the forum area for that product - thread moved to the Workstation Player area.

[wila]

Hi,

When I see your errors/symptoms then yes the SSD would be very high on the list of suspects.

If you're tech savvy, one thing you could try is replacing the sata cable to your SSD.

--

Wil

[JustOneQuestion]

Hello, Wila.

Thank you, I just changed my cables, lets see.

Originally I thought the VM was not on C:(os installation), but it turns out it is.

Wonder what this could mean, if my sata3 cables/host ssd was going bad wouldn't I see it on my host OS?

Thanks.

[wila]

Hi,

Well when you see corruption, you're basically playing a game of odds and trying to find out what the exact problem is, is not always as straightforward.

Seeing a data corruption in the guest, but not on your host, might still happen due to a bad spot on the disk somewhere.

As Player reported that it couldn't read a slice of the disk, it made me wonder if it wasn't perhaps a bad cable. It happens, but not that often.

With a bad cable it is rather unpredictable at what time you see a problem, the problem would be rather random. I've seen it happen before and it was rather frustrating to diagnose.

There can be more as just those reasons for data corruption, the most likely reason is a bad disk, what also happens is a power supply that starts to misbehave, that's also fairly common. Then something like a bad cable and lastly you might have problems with RAM.

In your case the best advice I can give is to backup all valuable data to an external disk asap.

Then verify that the data on the external disk works (preferably on another system)

--

Wil

[JustOneQuestion]

Hello Wila,

Just posting back my outcome in-case others have the same issue.

I replaced my SATA cables -- Didnt Work

I replaced my Mobo Drivers -- Didnt Work.

I replaced my host SSD -- Worked. (reinstalled OS)

Turns out my Host SSD was failing (even though Samsung Magician said it was "Good"), what is weird is that it was actually rather new, < 1 year old.

Anyway,

Hope this helps others!

Thanks.

[wila]

Hi,

Sometimes hardware just is unreliable and consumer disks are often a culprit indeed.

A shame that "the Magician" software wasn't able to properly diagnose it.

Thanks for letting us know how you solved it.

--
Wil