Running virutal machine from external hard drive, will not load when on restart

[anandsagan]

Have a MacBook pro (2015) with 256 GB storage. Most of this space is already in use so I decided to create a VM (ubuntu) and moved it to an external hard drive (seagate expansion drive).

I was able to get it up and running the first time and installed a few packages. I made a backup of the file, but now I'm unable to even open it. Maybe it's just taking a really long

time but it's pretty much stuck on a black screen with the _ blinking. New to VMware and any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[ColoradoMarmot]

So you had it working on an external drive - moved from finder?  Is that VM not working or is it the backup?

Just to make sure, you're copying while shut down, not just suspended?

[SvenGus]

There should be no problem running a copied or moved VM from an external drive: strange, indeed, what happened (maybe it's related to something else? some installed package? perhaps other problems?)...

[anandsagan]

I set it up on my computer, and then moved it to the external hard drive. The first time I ran it from the HD, it was working fine and I installed some packages. I created a backup, but now when I open the VM from the HD, it's just a black screen with a "_" flashing on the top left.

It is the VM that isn't working anymore.

[anandsagan]

I figured out that after I installed ROS packages (about 5 GB) this problem occurs. Totally the VM with the ROS packages is about 10 GB, but before I installed them, I was able to shut down and start the VM from the external hard drive.