VMWare workstation keeps deleting vmdk files

[ZerkerEOD]

As the title says, my Workstation keeps deleting vmdk files. Last week it was number 6 and today it deleted number 17. My last snapshot was in 2019 as I never had any issues. So I lost a lot of data, which is my fault. But now its happened twice in two weeks. The first time I tried to copy the one from my prior backup, and rename it to the current iteration but it failed to boot. Luckily this time doing that allowed it to boot, and I have no clue what information I lost yet.

I don't know what is doing it, or why. But it keeps happening. 

[Technogeezer]

It's more likely that either something else is deleting files behind your back or that you have a hardware problem that's starting to rear its ugly head.

Do you have an antivirus program running on your computer that's configured to scan the folders where your virtual machine is stored?

Are you saying that you have a snapshot that's been open for over 3 years? If so, that's a really, really bad practice and not what snapshots were designed for.

[ZerkerEOD]

I am on a Discord that brought up a AV thing also. I just use Windows Defender, and they suggested adding my VM folder to an exemption. So I added that and will see.

I also know it's bad practice. I snapshotted my VM before I took a test. But yeah the snapshot has no issues as I have restored it twice now. I did it the wrong way as I should have cloned my current image then restored and tried to pull information from what is remaining. But yeah I lost a couple of years' worth of stuff, luckily nothing too important just scripts and files documentation for stuff like Hack the Box. 

But, I will see how the exemption goes and see if it still happens. As, two people have mentioned it though, I feel better that it isn't actually VMWare.