When i was trying to power on VM it ended up in the error Reason: The file specified is not a virtual disk. Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/4d48ad95-ad5e027a-67f4-e41f1360cc9e/Iso/ser01/ser01.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

[sibsbt]

I shutdown one vm and after sometime  i tried to power on . Its ended up in the following error

Reason: The file specified is not a virtual disk. Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/4d48ad95-ad5e027a-67f4-e41f1360cc9e/Iso/ser01/ser01.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

The machine was working fine before shutdown .

In the datastore the type of  vm file  is  ' file' instead of  'virtual disk '

Please help

[spravtek]

In the datastore the type of  vm file  is  ' file' instead of  'virtual disk '

What do you mean exactly?

On the datastore, are you still seeing this ".vmdk" file? or only maybe the "-flat.vmdk" file?

[AWo]

Can you post a list/screenshot of the directory contents, please?

AWo

[sibsbt]

On the datastore, are you still seeing this ".vmdk" file? or only maybe the "-flat.vmdk" file?

only "-flat.vmdk" file

[spravtek]

You'll probably need to recreate the vmdk file, there's a nice KB for it: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1002511

Hope this helps, if not, give us a shout!

[sibsbt]

recreating does it mean i ll loose data  in the existing vmdk

[spravtek]

If you follow the guidelines no, the ".vmdk" file is a descriptor file, the actual data is in the "-flat.vmdk" file.

[AWo · Accepted solution]

You're missing the .vmdk descriptor file. The xxxx-flat.vmdk is the file which holds the data actually. But the xxxx.vmdk is missing, which is a text file which links to the flat file.

AWo

[sibsbt]

thanks to both AWo and  spravtek