VMX file corrupt

[jenodorf]

Hi

I decide to resinstall my PC

I copied all  my data to an external drive and re installed it.

HAving reinstalled windows I copied my files back and installed the latest version of Player.

I use it to run an old accounts package under windows XP.

Now when I start up the virtual drive I see that my VMX file is corrupt.

In the folder I have loads of files with names _000 and  s001 up to s011

I do not want to start doing anything without being sure what I'm doing and it appears my backup is corrupt.

Would appreciate and help. Or if it is dead can I "break into"  thevirtual Drive and extract my accounts

thanks

Ian

[a_p_]

There are basically two issues with the VM. It looks like it was suspended, i.e. not properly shut down prior to backing it up, and restoring it on the new installation.

So what you need to do is:
1.) recreate the .vmx file, see HowTo: Recreating a .vmx from the vmware.log file for details

2.) delete the .vmss (virtual machine suspend state) file

André

[jenodorf]

Hi

many thanks for the prompt response

I followed  your instruction and no when I attempt to start the virtual hard drive I get the error

Error while powering on: The file specified is not a virtual disk.

It also seems that no log file is created and the exisitng file is not showing a modification.

Any ideas

thanks

Ian

[a_p_]

Please attach "Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk" as well as "Windows XP Home Edition_000.vmdk" to a reply post. Maybe there's something wrong with the metadata.

André

[jenodorf]

HI

thanks for all the help, I've attached the files as you asked.

I notice that the files  are quite small  and futher down the listing is a vmdk file which is 3,823,234kb

I assume the virtual drive is split into sections designated with the extensions -s001?

If it has all gone south is there anyway to open the vmdk file and extract the two folders I need?

cheers

Ian

[a_p_]

You are ritgh, the -s00x.vmdk files are created based on the selected format, which by default is a sparse file format split into several chunks, depending on the virtual disk's size. in earlier versions the max. size of such a chank was 2GB, thats why there's a createType="twoGbMaxExtentSparse" entry in the header file.

As long as the spars files have not been corrupted you should be able to fix the issue by renaming/deleting the current "Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk", and then renaming "Windows XP Home Edition_000.vmdk" (remove "_000" from the file name". The header file is a text file which contains information about the virtual disk's size, geometry, and the data .vmdk file(s) which the virtual disks consists of.

André

[jenodorf]

Hi Andre

do appreciate all the advice.

I've just renames the vmdk file to extension old and renamed the-000 file to Windows XP Home Edition

When I nopw go into player I see listed

.lck, and four files with the extension .vmx,

I assume this calls the vmdx file?

When I select "Windows XP Home Edition.vmx it I get the screen sayng the sate is powere off. If I select Play virtual Machine my error is

"error while powering on: The file specified is not a virtual disk.

One thing has occured this pc was running a full version of workstation 11 - it's now running 12 player.

Does this mean my sparce files are corrupted? or is there anyhtingelse I can try

thanks

Ian

[a_p_]

Let's see what else we can do to find out what's causing the issue.

As a first step please delete all *.lck files and folders in the VM's directory (do this with VMware Player closed!)

If the error regarding the virtual disk still occurs, we'll need to check the sparse file's metadata. In order to do this, please download dsfok.zip from http://faq.sanbarrow.com/index.php?action=artikel&cat=47&id=111&artlang=en, extract the executables, run the below mentioned command in the VM's folder, then compress/zip all the "xxx-....bin" files and attach the resulting .zip file to a reply post

for %i in (*-s???.vmdk) do @dsfo.exe "%i" 0 1536 "xxx-%~ni.bin"

André

[jenodorf]

Hi Andre

again thanks for the assist.

What i've done is:

copied the folder from my users\virtualmachines to an external drive.

I wnet back to the original folder and:

deleted all the .lck files and directories - 3 in all .lck, .lck_000 and .vmem.lck

I then open vmware and attempted to open the virtual drive and got the error

Error while powering on: The file specified is not a virtual disk.

I then closed vmware and downloaded the file as you requested.

I extracted the executables and then copied them to the virtual machone folder where the vmdk files are located

I double clicked on dsfo.exe nothing appeared to happen

I then opened a command prompt and used cd... to go to my virtual machine and ran the code below from the command line but again nothing happened

for %i in (*-s???.vdmk) do @dsfo.exe "%i" 0 1536 "xxx-%~ni-bin"

What step am I missing

thanks again

Ian

[a_p_]

Seems you didn't copy the command line, but typed it manually. There's a typo in the file extension (.vdmk instead of .vmdk).

Although less important, it's .bin for the target file names, rather than -bin.

André

[jenodorf]

Hi

My error for soe reason couldn't copy and paste

zip file attatched

cheers

Ian

[a_p_]

I can't see the attached .zip file.

André

[jenodorf]

Sorry having a total senior moment

can't see how to attatch the zip file

wheres the paper clip 😉

cheers

Ian

[a_p_]

There's an "Attach" link in the bottom right of the reply screen.

André

[jenodorf]

http://www.xm496.com/bin.zip

I uploaded the zip file to this site

hope thats Ok

Ian

[a_p_]

From a quick check, there seems to be nothing wrong with the .vmdk files' metadata.

Since we did a couple of things so far, there might be something we overlook.

Please run dir *.* /one in the VM's folder and paste the text output to a reply post. In addition to this compress/zip the followin files and attach the .zip file.

Files required:

• all the descriptor/header .vmdk file, i.e. the small ones without -s###.vmdk in their names
• all .vmx, .vmxf, .vmsd, and .log files

(You may want to change Explorer settings, to display the file extensions)

André

[jenodorf]

Hi

heres the dir listing

many thanks

Directory of C:\Users\ian\Documents\Virtual Machines\Windows XP Home Edition

17/11/2016  10:27    <DIR>          .

17/11/2016  10:27    <DIR>          ..

13/11/2016  18:04    <DIR>          caches

08/08/2004  12:58               361 DOS Prompt Here NT.inf

09/02/2005  22:07             5,061 dsfi.exe

11/02/2005  11:51             6,637 dsfo.exe

17/11/2016  08:26    <DIR>          dsfok

18/02/2005  18:40            13,692 eds.exe

05/02/2005  22:25            13,875 esd.exe

16/02/2005  18:34             4,260 flip.exe

30/01/2005  13:44             6,144 fsz.exe

17/11/2016  08:35    <DIR>          GUI

16/02/2005  18:03             5,328 msk.exe

06/03/2005  14:32             8,329 readme.txt

30/01/2005  13:31             6,144 rsz.exe

09/02/2005  21:55             4,657 vlm.exe

11/11/2016  09:09           253,390 vmware.log

11/11/2016  07:00           243,618 vmware-0.log

09/11/2016  20:44           286,318 vmware-1.log

06/11/2016  12:53           713,078 vmware-2.log

08/11/2016  12:25           244,766 vmware-2_000.log

09/11/2016  11:06           269,418 vmware-2_001.log

06/11/2016  12:53             2,152 vprintproxy.log

02/11/2016  09:20             2,155 vprintproxy-0.log

01/11/2016  11:02             2,150 vprintproxy-1.log

21/10/2016  14:17             2,262 vprintproxy-2.log

11/11/2016  09:09             8,684 Windows XP Home Edition.nvram

11/11/2016  07:49             1,101 Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk

09/11/2016  15:04             1,101 Windows XP Home Edition.vmdkold

16/07/2015  12:51                 0 Windows XP Home Edition.vmsd

09/11/2016  20:44             3,071 Windows XP Home Edition.vmx

29/11/2015  21:00             3,884 Windows XP Home Edition.vmxf

11/11/2016  09:09             3,077 Windows XP Home Edition_000.vmx

11/11/2016  09:09             3,076 Windows XP Home Edition_001.vmx

25/08/2016  08:49       536,870,912 Windows XP Home Edition-4cd73181.vmem

25/08/2016  08:58         2,324,305 Windows XP Home Edition-4cd73181.vmss

17/11/2016  10:27             5,337 Windows XP Home Editionbin.zip

11/11/2016  09:09     2,962,817,024 Windows XP Home Edition-s001.vmdk

16/07/2015  12:51           524,288 Windows XP Home Edition-s002.vmdk

11/11/2016  09:09     3,571,384,320 Windows XP Home Edition-s003.vmdk

16/07/2015  12:51           524,288 Windows XP Home Edition-s004.vmdk

27/07/2016  13:55       919,732,224 Windows XP Home Edition-s005.vmdk

11/11/2016  09:09     3,916,169,216 Windows XP Home Edition-s006.vmdk

11/11/2016  09:09       593,887,232 Windows XP Home Edition-s007.vmdk

16/07/2015  12:51           524,288 Windows XP Home Edition-s008.vmdk

16/07/2015  12:51           524,288 Windows XP Home Edition-s009.vmdk

16/07/2015  12:51           524,288 Windows XP Home Edition-s010.vmdk

16/07/2015  16:13           131,072 Windows XP Home Edition-s011.vmdk

06/03/2005  14:26             6,007 xdl.exe

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s001.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s002.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s003.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s004.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s005.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s006.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s007.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s008.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s009.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s010.bin

17/11/2016  10:25             1,536 xxx-Windows XP Home Edition-s011.bin

              55 File(s) 12,508,083,774 bytes

               5 Dir(s)  836,456,456,192 bytes free

[jenodorf]

Hi

Attached is the zip file you requested.

As an aside - just another weird thing.

I looked for the attach icon as you suggested but couldn't find it. So I switched from Firefox to Edge and the paper clip appeared

All very weird

many thanks

Ian

[a_p_]

I see that the .vmss file still exists!? Anyway, let's see whether this helps:

• close VMware Player
• delete the current Windows XP Home Edition.vmx, and then rename Windows XP Home Edition_001.vmx to Windows XP Home Edition.vmx
• delete Windows XP Home Edition-4cd73181.vmem as well as Windows XP Home Edition-4cd73181.vmss

André

[jenodorf]

Hi

did that and  get the message  "Failed to open virtual machine VMX file is corrupt

thanks

Ian