Recover files stuck on old virtual drive (VMWare Fusion 6.0.2)

[andreasnord]

Dear all,

I am using VMWare Fusion 6.0.2 to run Windows 7 on my MacBook. I upgraded the latter to OS X El Capitan, and only afterwards discovered the compatibility problem.

This puts me in an awkward situation because I have a number of files stuck on the virtual drive, all of which seems to have escaped my automated backup.

Does anyone know of a way to access the virtual drive to recover these files, or is anyone familiar with another functional workaround? I assume installing VMWare Fusion 8 would not help, as this would be a new installation rather than an update?

Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.

B/w,

Andreas Nord

[andreasnord]

Problem solved using Paragon VMDK mounter.

Now need to figure out whether an upgrade to version 8 will be considered a new installation, or if it can be installed as an update (i.e. keeping existing software on the virtual drive).

[wila]

Hi,

Not sure if I completely understand your question, but I'll try.

If you install Fusion 8 then your old virtual machines and their data will be preserved.

It's like that updating your word processor will not delete your written texts with that word processor, updating the virtualisation software does not delete your virtual machines.

Like the word processor however, the newer version does have a slightly different format so you need to update your virtual machines. This is taken care of by confirming the questions that are asked automatically on starting to use your old virtual machine with the newer VMware Fusion.

Beware that this also means that the newer virtual machine cannot be used with Fusion 6 anymore unless you downgrade the virtual machine again.

If you have only one machine running OS X then that really isn't an issue, but just in the "good to know" department.

Hope this answers your questions.

--
Wil

[andreasnord]

Hi,

Thank you, I think you understod me correctly.

For licensing issues (turns out my employer is currently not able to offer a compatible version of VMware Fusion), I am considering using VirtualBox. Ideally I would like to import my vdmk into the latter to save me some time. I have used the following command to try to consolidate my (multiple) vdmk files into one:

$ /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager –r /Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/Windows\ 7\ x64.vmwarevm/Virtual\ Disk.vmdk -t 1 ~/Desktop/ Windows\ 7\ x64.vmdk

However, the following error message appears:

"Diskname or some other argument is missing."

Any insights into errors in the command, or any other possible reasons for this not working as it should?

B/w,

Andreas

[a_p_]

If this is the exact command you are using, remove the space between "~/Desktop/" and "Windows" from the target file name.

André

[andreasnord]

Thank you! I tried this, but the error message remains the same!

Andreas

[wila]

Hi,

What I normally do when using the vmware-vdiskmanager command is to navigate to the folder where the source disk lives and call vmware-vdiskmanager from there:

eg:

cd /Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/Windows\ 7\ x64.vmwarevm
/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager –r "Virtual Disk.vmdk" -t 1 ~/Desktop/Windows\ 7\ x64.vmdk

I've also seen that I had to precede the vmware-vdiskmanager with "sudo" to elevate credentials and perhaps the target also needs the quoted notation for the target file instead of escaping spaces in file names, although of course it is expected to work using your notation.

--

Wil

[andreasnord]

Thank you very much - this seemed promising!

However, whilst §1 works just fine, I get the same error message (i.e. "Diskname or some other argument is missing") when using §2. It does not matter whether I put quotation marks around the target file, or if I add the full search paths for either source or target.

I'm a bit at loss here.

Not familiar with use of sudo - but perhaps there might be some settings that could be altered to smooth the process?

Andreas

[andreasnord]

Sorry for spamming, but a short update here.

When I try to change location of the target file to something other than Desktop, e.g. the Documents folder

01. cd /Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/Windows\ 7\ x64.vmwarevm

02. ”/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager” –r "/Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Windows 7 x64.vmwarevm/Virtual Disk.vmdk" -t 1 "/Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Windows 7 x64.vmdk”

Running this code produces no error message. It also produces no results - the terminal seems to malfunction afterwards if anything (at least it does not respond to further command lines without reboot).

dhcp20-eduroam8:~ AndreasNord$

dhcp20-eduroam8:~ AndreasNord$ cd /Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Virtual\ Machines.localized/Windows\ 7\ x64.vmwarevm

dhcp20-eduroam8:Windows 7 x64.vmwarevm AndreasNord$ ”/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager” –r "/Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Virtual Machines.localized/Windows 7 x64.vmwarevm/Virtual Disk.vmdk" -t 1 "/Users/AndreasNord/Documents/Windows 7 x64.vmdk”

> |

Any ideas for a solution much appreciated.

Andreas

[wila]

Hi,

Not sure what "the terminal seems to malfunction" means. I take it that you do know that cloning the disk like that will take some time. Normally the command will give you some progress though. Of course there's always the possibility that vmware-vdiskmanager also has been broken as well, but let's at least try the following.

For running with sudo you just prepend the whole 2nd line with "sudo"

eg.

sudo vmware-vdiskmanager ....

sudo stands for "Superuser do" and means that you will run the command as root. Type "man sudo" for the manual on this or... go read more on it for example on this page:

http://ss64.com/osx/sudo.html

sudo will ask for your password in order to run as another user.

--

Wil

[andreasnord]

Hi,

Thank you!

"Seems to malfunction" was based on the observation that after having submitted the code, the terminal window reverts to showing nothing but '>'. It also does not give a progress report, and terminal does not respond at all when I enter new code. A restart is required for reversal to its default, responsive, state.

I have tried the sudo option, but the story is the same, i.e. no response after having entered the password.

Any chance it would be possible to recreate using a different vmdk file? All but the last 2 of the 32 vmdk's are 2.15 GB, which seems about right. The 31st is 30 MB, and the current file (according to the vmx file; scsi0:0.fileName = "Virtual Disk.vmdk") is 4 KB. Not sure if that matters at all, but it seemed a bit off.

Andreas

[wila]

Hi Andreas,

Well there are all kinds of difficult ways I guess.. however you can still install a 30 day version of Fusion 8..

Then you can consolidate your VMs disk without any trouble, there are no limits besides the 30 day of usage restriction.

That would be the easiest way I think.

Not sure why I didn't' suggest it earlier.

Try VMware Fusion or Fusion Pro.

PS: Don't mess with the vmdk files, the different sizes are expected.

--

Wil

[andreasnord]

Excellent idea, it worked out just fine!

Thank you,

Andreas