Re: repair corrupt flat.vmdk files?

Hi,

If you want to open VMDK (virtual machine disk) format to access the data you have to open descriptor file <vnname>.vmdk which defines the structure/geometry of the <vnname>-flat.vmdk (which stores just a raw data).

It can happen that the descriptor gets corrupted ... for the recovery follow these steps:

VMware KB: Recreating a missing virtual machine disk descriptor file

Another issue could be caused by missing descriptor files for delta disks (snapshots) i.e. when snapshot chain is broken/corrupted, for more info see:

VMware KB: Recreating a missing virtual disk (VMDK) descriptor file for delta disks

VMware KB: Resolving the CID mismatch error: The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created …

Also have a look at these sources:

VMware KB: Cannot power on a virtual machine because the virtual disk cannot be opened

VMware KB: Verifying ESX/ESXi virtual machine file integrity