How to resolve "The file specified is not a virtual disk" error?

[brian2012]

Hello - I have a linux/ubuntu host running vmware 1.08 with a SBS2003 VM that recently ran out of physical HD space. After adding a new hard drive I know get a The file specified is not a virtual disk error on one of the drives I am trying to add - the other 3 work. After looking around here I checked the descriptor file and it appears fine.

my log doesn't help as I cannot start the Vm with  the hard drive i need.

What are some solutions I can try?

Thanks for any help!

B.

[a_p_]

Welcome to the Community,

I'm actually not sure what you are trying to do. The file names in the .vmdk file you attached don't match any of the attached virtual disks!?

In addition to this, it looks like you are trying to attach the same disk twice (base plus snapshot), which will definitely not work.

scsi0:0.fileName = "SBS2003-000001.vmdk"
scsi0:1.fileName = "SBS2003-0.vmdk"
scsi0:2.fileName = "SBS2003.vmdk"

scsi0:3.fileName = "SBS2003-1.vmdk"

Can you please clarify.

André

[brian2012]

Thx Andre

The scsi0:2 is the one I cannot get to install. That log is from after a failed attempt to install it and it defaulted to the base file - it is supposed to be sbsdata-0-000001.vmdk

After I added a new physical drive I copied over all the files from the old drive and recreated a VM then tried to install the existing drives. Which works if I remove scsi0:2. I understand that this error usually means that the discriptor is corrupt or missing but I believe it is ok as it contains what I believe to be the correct info. I did notice that the sbsdata-0-000001.vmdk descriptor is 2kb and the base sbsdata-0.vmdk is 1KB - does that matter?

Thx again

[a_p_]

The descriptor seems to be ok. Can you confirm all the .vmdk files for the snapshot and base disk of SBSDATA-0.vmdk still exist? Maybe one of the s0xx.vmdk files is missing or corrupt!?

André

[brian2012]

s005 thru to s015 show 0 B, all the rest (41 of them) show data up to 2147MB.

[a_p_]

Zero bytes, that's bad. Can you please post a list of all .vmdk files (ls -lisa *.vmdk) for this disk including the snapshot .vmdk files? Unless you have a backup of these file we can try to replace them with others to be able to power on the VM with the disk attached and see which files can be backed up/saved from the disk.

Btw. I recommend you backup the current files prior to do anything!

André

[brian2012]

OK thank for the help! here is the .vmdk info.

Thanks again,

B

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately you lost the data in the zero bytes snapshot .vmdk files. I hope you do have a backup of your data, since the snapshot has been created back in January!?

To be able to power on the VM - even with some data corruption on the disk - replace the zero bytes .vmdk files with one that has 327680 bytes, which is basically an empty file with only some metadata.

André

PS: As mentioned before, please backup the files before you power on the VM to be able to revert to the current state in case you need to!

[brian2012]

Thank you very much for your kind help! That worked to at least get it to start and I am now backing up the rest of the data.

Best regards,

Brian