VMWare Workstation 17.5.x Spontaneous loss of VMX and VMDK files

I have found out that all the VMs that were powered off had lost their VMX and VMDK files, whereas the suspended machines have lost the VMDK files. When I created a new VM after the loss of these files, they seemed to work perfectly. I got the error codes:

"File not found: <vm name>.vmdk

This file is required to power on the virtual machine. If the file was moved, specify the new location",

or

"Could not open virtual machine <vm name> (C:\Users\<user>\OneDrive\Documents\Virtual Machines\<vm name>\<vm name>.vmdk):

File not found.

Remove <vm name> from the library?"

On 1 of the virtual machines that did have the VMX, but not the VMDK file, I tried to "fix the solution" by selecting the (wrong) VMDK file. I chose the file that ended with "s00XX.vmdk" (X, as a placeholder digit), instead of the right file (that was missing). However, I was unaware that this could cause a problem, and alas, an error message saying

"The file specified is not a virtual disk.

Cannot open the disk 'C:\Users\<user>\OneDrive\Documents\Virtual Machines\Windows Vista\Windows Vista-s001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Module 'Disk' power on failed.

Failed to start the virtual machine."

I cannot change the disk since it is in its suspended state and I can't power it off since the disk is invalid.

I have attached the log files if required. The log files is for one of the guests, Windows Vista. If anyone has a solution to this issue, then I would greatly appreciate your help.

aaaaaaaaaaaatr5 said:

I have found out that all the VMs that were powered off had lost their VMX and VMDK files, whereas the suspended machines have lost the VMDK files. When I created a new VM after the loss of these files, they seemed to work perfectly. I got the error codes:

"File not found: <vm name>.vmdk

This file is required to power on the virtual machine. If the file was moved, specify the new location",

or

"Could not open virtual machine <vm name> (C:\Users\<user>\OneDrive\Documents\Virtual Machines\<vm name>\<vm name>.vmdk):

File not found.

Remove <vm name> from the library?"

On 1 of the virtual machines that did have the VMX, but not the VMDK file, I tried to "fix the solution" by selecting the (wrong) VMDK file. I chose the file that ended with "s00XX.vmdk" (X, as a placeholder digit), instead of the right file (that was missing). However, I was unaware that this could cause a problem, and alas, an error message saying

"The file specified is not a virtual disk.

Cannot open the disk 'C:\Users\<user>\OneDrive\Documents\Virtual Machines\Windows Vista\Windows Vista-s001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

Module 'Disk' power on failed.

Failed to start the virtual machine."

I cannot change the disk since it is in its suspended state and I can't power it off since the disk is invalid.

I have attached the log files if required. The log files is for one of the guests, Windows Vista. If anyone has a solution to this issue, then I would greatly appreciate your help.

Click to expand...

@aaaaaaaaaaaatr5

Try booting up a Windows install disk -- doesn't matter what version of W11 and choose the option repair System->Command mode. This brings you to the Windows PE mode which is automatically in "Run as administrator" mode so all your commands will be in an elevated state.

Now simply delete the offending Disk file and reboot the Host again. Note you'll have to delete the entire virtual disk file for that Guest as opening the wrong vdmk file will corrupt the entire "Virtual Disk image" that the Guest uses especially if there are multiple 001.vdmk, 002.vdmk files etc.

These days with decently large SSD/NVMe's I'd ignore the typical advice given when creating new Virtual Machines Virtual disks by instead of allowing the Guest's virtual disks to grow in multiple segments but just allocate the maximum in one go. With SSD type device fragmentation of a virtual disk is really irrelevant unlike with classical "spinners".

Cheers
jimbo

Do I have to delete all the s001, s002 etc files?

I have removed the offending vmdk file. Now how do I recover the lost files?

aaaaaaaaaaaatr5 said:

I have removed the offending vmdk file. Now how do I recover the lost files?

Click to expand...

I'm afraid there's no realistic way you can recover lost files if they were on the other bits of the virtual disk e.g the s002, s003 bits etc.

That's the big problem with things like Vmware and its vdisk format, especially when it's split up into bits.

Once you've created a VM the best thing you can do in the future is to attach a PHYSICAL drive to the VM and copy user data from the VM to the physical drive -- or even better image the VM to a physical drive (can be an external USB device) using a program like Macrium. Image it rather than clone it as if you need to recover the data it can be done on any Windows system. If you clone the disk it will be in the vmware's disk format and probably won't boot.

Cheers
jimbo