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A1exander
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Open VMDK in ESXI 5.5?

I have a VMDK file that was made from backup using Symantec System Recovery 2013 R2. I need to open the file somehow. I tried to install esxi 5.5 on older server I had as spare and load it in datastore but that doesn't open it when I try to run the virtual machine. The standalone converter tool doesn't recognize the vmdk file. To my understanding I need it compatible with esxi. How do I accomplish this? Or if I could open it in workstation that would work too, I just need to transfer some files from that file.

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a_p_
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Using VMware Workstation might be the easiest approach to access the files.

Depending on your host OS, and the virtual disks's file system, you may not even need to create a VM from the .vmdk, but you can simply map the virtual disk to your host OS.

One question though. Which Hypervisor was used to create the virtual disk? In case of e.g. ESXi the virtual disks consists of two files, a small descriptor/header file e.g. "<vmname>.vmdk", and a data file "<vmname>-flat.vmdk".


André

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a_p_
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Using VMware Workstation might be the easiest approach to access the files.

Depending on your host OS, and the virtual disks's file system, you may not even need to create a VM from the .vmdk, but you can simply map the virtual disk to your host OS.

One question though. Which Hypervisor was used to create the virtual disk? In case of e.g. ESXi the virtual disks consists of two files, a small descriptor/header file e.g. "<vmname>.vmdk", and a data file "<vmname>-flat.vmdk".


André

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RajeevVCP4
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what is your scope of work , do you want deploy vm by using back up vmdk ?

Rajeev Chauhan
VCIX-DCV6.5/VSAN/VXRAIL
Please mark help full or correct if my answer is use full for you
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A1exander
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Thanks your hint helped turn on the vm, however its super slow, I have the file on hard drive and it's large probably need to move it to sshd.

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