Help locating vmware-mount or vmware-mount.pl

[rogermancia]

Hi,

I have VMware Workstation 10 running on Windows. I have a need to mount a corrupted linux vmdk to recover files. I cannot find VMWare Disk Mount for the life of me.

(vmware-mount)

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/VMwareDiskMount.pdf

or

vmware-mount.pl

I also downloaded VMWare Virtual Disk Development Kit and could not find the above tools there. I also understand from reading the pdf on vmware-mount that you cannot "cross-mount". The alternative I was hoping to achieve was to mount the linux vmdk inside a linux vm (through vmware). I know I can mount ISO's from the linux vm, but I know this is a bit different.

Questions:

1. Where can I get vmware-mount or vmware-mount.pl (link please? I have searched the download)

2. Is it possible to mount vmdk from another linux vm (using the tools above)?

Thanks,

Roger

‎

[continuum]

Mount-tools are not really useful for your case - your Windows does not understand the filesystem anyway.
You have two very easy ways to get access to the corrupted VMDK - I assume that the Linux filesystem is corrupt and not the virtual disk itself.

1. edit VM settings and assign a Linux LiveCD like Knoppix as an iso-file. Then change bootorder and start from the LiveCD

2. use another Linux VM and edit the settings - add another disk and select "use existing vmdk". Select the corrupt disk then.

Both ways will give you read access to the filesystem of the broken vmdk.
It is important to understand that the vmdk can have corrupt vmdk-structures - then you get an error message at start like "this virtual disk needs repair"
and you can have a broken guest filesystem on a healthy vmdk. In this case you would get Linux messages at boot like "panic - cant find root filesystem"