Run this command against the flat file:
vi WindowsServer.vmdk Here is a standard template for a monolithic sparse or monolithic flat disk. You must change the values in brackets.
We’ve all been there. You go to power on a virtual machine, and instead of a familiar boot screen, you’re greeted by an error: “Failed to open disk: The file specified is not a virtual disk.” restore vmdk descriptor file
Don't panic. You don't need backups of the entire VM to fix this. You just need to rebuild a 1KB text file.
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic" ddb.geometry.cylinders = "[CYLINDERS]" ddb.geometry.heads = "255" ddb.geometry.sectors = "63" ddb.longContentID = "b5e0dbe93277d7e7d70505c1" ddb.thinProvisioned = "0" ddb.toolsVersion = "0" ddb.uuid = "6000C299-1234-5678-9abc-def123456789" ddb.virtualHWVersion = "13" Run this command against the flat file: vi WindowsServer
You check the datastore, and everything looks fine—your large flat VMDK (usually named vmname-flat.vmdk ) is sitting right there, taking up 100GB. But its tiny sibling, the descriptor file ( vmname.vmdk ), is missing or corrupted.
# Disk DescriptorFile version=1 CID=fffffffe parentCID=ffffffff createType="monolithicFlat" RW [SIZE_IN_SECTORS] VMFS "vmname-flat.vmdk" The Disk Data Base #DDB You go to power on a virtual machine,
Create a new file named exactly like the original (e.g., WindowsServer.vmdk ) using vi or nano .