Repairing a virtual disk in Workstation (2019259)

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 https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2019259

Last Updated: 9/25/2018Categories: How to

 Symptoms
  • The virtual machine fails to start after a forced host shutdown.
  • The virtual machine does not start after a failure.
  • When starting the virtual machine, you see an error similar to:

    Cannot open the disk 'path_to_virtual machine/virtual_disk.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: The specified virtual disk needs repair.
     
  • When trying to mount the virtual disk with VMDKMounter, you see the error:

    There is a problem trying to mount the virtual disk.
 Purpose
This article provides steps to repair a virtual disk of a VMware Workstation virtual machine in Linux and Windows hosts.
 Resolution

Linux Host

To repair a virtual disk of a Workstation virtual machine in a Linux host, use the vmware-vdiskmanager utility that is installed by the Workstation installer in the /usr/bin folder on a Linux host.
 
To use the virtual disk repair utility on a Linux host:
  1. Open a terminal window in the Linux host.
  2. Run this command:

    /usr/bin/vmware-vdiskmanager -R <path of the vmdk(virtual disk)>

    Note: Where <path of the vmdk(virtual disk)> is the folder path to the virtual disk that appeared in the error.

Windows Host

To repair a virtual disk of a Workstation virtual machine in a Windows host, use the vmware-vdiskmanager utility that is installed by the Workstation installer in the installation folder on a Windows host.
 
To use the virtual disk repair utility on a Windows host:
  1. Open a command prompt. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892).
  2. Navigate to the directory where Workstation is installed. By default, this directory is located at:
     
    • Windows XP – C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation
    • Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 32bit – C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation
    • Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 64bit – C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation
    • Windows Server 2008 R2 – C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation
    • Windows Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 64bit/Windows 10 – C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation
       
  3. Run the command:

    vmware-vdiskmanager -R "<path of the vmdk(virtual disk>"

    Note: Where < path of the vmdk(virtual disk> is the complete path to the virtual disk that requires repair as reported in the error.

    Example: vmware-vdiskmanager -R "D:\Virtual Machine\Windows 7\virtualdisk.vmdk"

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