Error message: Windows 7.vmwarevm/Windows 7.vmdk' has one or more internal errors that cannot be fixed.

[kc737]

Hello Community,

Please help me. I have not been able to start my virtual machine since early June 2019. I receive the following message:

The disk '/Users/nnnnnnn/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Do Not Delete/Windows 7.vmwarevm/Windows 7.vmdk' has one or more internal errors that cannot be fixed.

Restore from a backup copy of this disk.

The specified virtual disk needs repair

Cannot open the disk '/Users/nnnnnn/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Do Not Delete/Windows 7.vmwarevm/Windows 7.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Module 'Disk' power on failed.

Failed to start the virtual machine.

Then I have to click OK. (which it is not - I simply have no choice).

I am running Mac Osx High Sierra; 10.13.6.  I also run VMware Fusion 11.1.0.

For the past month, I have been searching the Fusion community, but honestly feel so unbelievably ignorant, I am terrified. I have no idea where to start. Based in past users difficulties, I have figure out how to Get Info, and Open Package Contents.

Is there anyone who can help me understand what I should do next?  I do understand that there is a general problem with Time Machine. But of course, this is the way I back up my Mac. So my question also includes: how should I back up my virtual machine, which is quite large?

Should I attach a log file? Which one? I don't know how to compress files (I told you I was ignorant).

Many thanks.

kc737

[a_p_]

I'm not sure whether it's possible to repair the metadata, because it looks really corrupted. Maybe a recovery is the better choice in this case (this is a question for ontinuum​).

Anyway, if you want, extract the metadata from the .vmdk file, compress/zip it and attach the .zip archive to a reply post.

To extract the metadata, please run the following commands from a terminal  window:

cd "/Users/Kcbeachy/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Do Not Delete/Windows 7.vmwarevm"

dd count=11584 if="Windows 7.vmdk" of="Metadata.bin" bs=1024

André

[kc737]

Hi Andre'

I found a recovery expert who was able to take my Mac and my Seagate Backup Plus and restore my virtual machine to a prior date. The data was able to be recovered once the virtual machine was fixed. 

He explained it got broken when I had to hard restart my host machine. Which had happened when for some reason my Mac froze for over an hour and it did not look like I was going to be able to shut down the VM before restart.

So.  Now exploring new, improved, multi-layer backups.

I am so very grateful to all of you. I was in full-blown panic mode.

We used to have a sign outside my office. I did not invent it, but have shared it.

Nothing can be entirely foolproof, because fools are so ingenious. 

Many blessings,

kc737