I have a read error on one of the VMDK files. I am trying to backup my virtual machine. It was running but had errors occasionally before the whole Mac computer stopped booting up. If I copy all the files that will copy but am missing one of the VMDK files will the VM still boot up? I am trying to backup all the files that make up the VM and then format the computer and then open the VM to copy my important files out of the VM and then create a new VM then copy the files into the new VM. Or is there an easier way to do this? Can I just mount a virtual hard drive of the VM and copy the files from it as if it was an external hard drive?
Post needs moving to the Fusion area, reported to the moderators.
So first, Fusion dropped the vmdk mounter a while back, so that's not an option AFAIK.
Your best bet is to copy the file over even with errors. That's the most likely to keep your information intact. In terms of booting up, it'll depend on where it's corrupt. One of the guru's here like Andre might have better information.
More broadly, if you have that kind of disk corruption, it indicates that you may be having a physical failure. Simply formatting the machine and reinstalling won't solve that - you probably need a new drive.
I agree with @ColoradoMarmot . Copy over what's possible, and - if you experience issues with the copied files - post a listing of the VM's files that you have, i.e. the output of ls -l (as plain text please, not as a screenshot). With that we can then see what might be possible.
André
Thanks for the help! Here is what copied over using Carbon Copy Cloner. It is worse than I thought. There is a message when I try to post this text that the post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body. I don't know what has been changed since it looks the same to me. Hopefully it won't confuse things.
-Brian
Windows 7 x64.vmwarevm % ls -l
total 425465344
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 3175088128 Feb 1 2018 564deb7b-c122-a896-80cb-3a01ffdf11b1.vmem
drwxr-xr-x 3 502 staff 96 Dec 23 2016 Applications
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4220452864 Dec 9 02:16 Virtual Disk-s001.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4249419776 Dec 9 02:15 Virtual Disk-s002.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252041216 Dec 9 02:16 Virtual Disk-s003.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4251713536 Dec 9 02:14 Virtual Disk-s004.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252499968 Dec 9 02:16 Virtual Disk-s005.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4248043520 Nov 28 09:23 Virtual Disk-s006.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4244242432 Aug 6 17:31 Virtual Disk-s007.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4250796032 Dec 9 02:09 Virtual Disk-s008.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252303360 Dec 9 02:09 Virtual Disk-s009.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252499968 Dec 9 02:13 Virtual Disk-s010.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252499968 Dec 9 02:23 Virtual Disk-s011.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252368896 Dec 9 00:12 Virtual Disk-s012.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4250796032 Dec 9 02:10 Virtual Disk-s013.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252499968 Dec 9 01:52 Virtual Disk-s014.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4252499968 Dec 9 01:40 Virtual Disk-s015.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 645005312 Sep 14 03:22 Virtual Disk-s016.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4261871616 Dec 9 02:10 Virtual Disk-s017.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4261937152 Dec 7 16:02 Virtual Disk-s018.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4261937152 Dec 7 16:02 Virtual Disk-s019.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4261937152 Dec 7 16:02 Virtual Disk-s020.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4261937152 Aug 31 02:51 Virtual Disk-s021.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 167837696 Aug 10 05:09 Virtual Disk-s022.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 02:09 Virtual Disk-s023.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 02:15 Virtual Disk-s024.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 00:33 Virtual Disk-s025.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Oct 26 01:29 Virtual Disk-s026.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 00:07 Virtual Disk-s027.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369298944 Dec 9 02:08 Virtual Disk-s028.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Nov 28 09:14 Virtual Disk-s029.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369364480 Nov 23 03:14 Virtual Disk-s030.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 02:16 Virtual Disk-s032.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 01:50 Virtual Disk-s033.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 9 02:15 Virtual Disk-s035.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5369430016 Dec 4 01:54 Virtual Disk-s036.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 10737876992 Dec 9 02:11 Virtual Disk-s040.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 10737942528 Dec 9 02:10 Virtual Disk-s041.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 10738794496 Dec 9 02:16 Virtual Disk-s047.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 10738794496 Dec 9 01:52 Virtual Disk-s048.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 10646454272 Dec 9 02:16 Virtual Disk-s050.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 10738794496 Dec 9 02:14 Virtual Disk-s052.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1703936 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s055.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1703936 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s056.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1703936 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s057.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1703936 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s058.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1703936 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s059.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1703936 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s060.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 720896 Jul 24 2022 Virtual Disk-s061.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 3141 Dec 9 01:49 Virtual Disk.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 8684 Dec 9 01:49 Windows 7 x64.nvram
-rw-r--r-- 1 btodd staff 871 Dec 29 10:43 Windows 7 x64.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 91 Jul 24 2022 Windows 7 x64.vmsd
-rwxr--r-- 1 btodd staff 5548 Dec 29 08:55 Windows 7 x64.vmx
drwxrwxrwx 3 btodd staff 96 Dec 29 08:49 Windows 7 x64.vmx.lck
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 4266 Jul 24 2022 Windows 7 x64.vmxf
drwxr-xr-x 7 502 staff 224 Dec 4 2014 appListCache
drwxr-xr-x 3 502 staff 96 Jul 6 2022 caches
-rw-r----- 1 502 staff 95429 Dec 6 02:34 mksSandbox-0.log
-rw-r----- 1 502 staff 96197 Nov 16 00:09 mksSandbox-1.log
-rw-r----- 1 502 staff 164516 Oct 19 11:42 mksSandbox-2.log
-rw-r----- 1 502 staff 93717 Dec 9 01:21 mksSandbox.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 0 May 24 2020 quicklook-cache.png
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 918385 Dec 8 21:55 startMenu.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 8192 Oct 19 11:40 vm-73.scoreboard
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 8192 Oct 19 11:43 vm-74.scoreboard
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 8192 Nov 22 00:01 vm-75.scoreboard
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 8192 Dec 8 21:55 vm.scoreboard
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 7746597 Mar 8 2018 vmmcores-17.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 6544873 May 22 2018 vmmcores-18.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 5092420 Dec 8 21:06 vmware-0.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 1679071 Nov 21 03:58 vmware-1.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 261975 Oct 19 11:42 vmware-2.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 502 staff 674793 Dec 9 02:28 vmware.log
Not sure why your reply has been moved to the quarantine.
Anyway, to find out what's needed to replace the missing files so that the virtual disk can be opened again, please compress/zip "Virtual Disk.vmdk", and attach the .zip archive to your next reply.
André
Weird thing happened. After a month of working on getting the files off. I had a power outage when the computer was in target disk mode and the computer rebooted normally. I was able to launch Windows and copy my files out. It lasted 2 days and then wouldn't boot up again. Thanks for the help.
-Brian