changhai wrote:
1. VMX file
checked VMX file, it is quite strange:
- normally, the virtual disk name should Virtual Disk.vmdk, while it is Window XP Pro.vmdk.
- this guest type is Window 7. it use one Window XP Pro.vmdk. is the filename correct ?
...
scsi0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Pro.vmdk"
...
displayName = "Windows 7"
guestOS = "windows7"
@changhai The plausible explanation for this is the original VM was as reflected by the name of the virtual hard disk a Windows XP Pro VM that was then at some point upgraded to Windows 7.
2. VMDK file
using text edit to open the Window XP Pro.vmdk, it is not a perfect VMDK description file obviously. and using the command "file ./Window XP Pro.vmdk" it is one "data" type file; normally it should be one ASCII English text file (split to multiple files) or VMware4 disk image file (non-split).
The command as you've written "file ./Window XP Pro.vmdk" (sic) would fail as it is neither properly quoted or escaped as shown below:
file ./Window\ XP\ Pro.vmdk
file "./Window XP Pro.vmdk"
I have one suggestion to create a new same size of virtual disk and rename the VMDK description file to replace bad one: Window XP Pro.vmdk and power on the VM to see what happens after you backup the original Window XP Pro.vmdk file.
What you propose here, as proposed, will fail because you cannot just change the name of the Disk DescriptorFile from "Virtual Disk.vmdk" to "Windows XP Pro.vmdk" because the contents of the Disk DescriptorFile would still have "Virtual Disk-s###.vmdk"" for all of the Extents and would need to be edited as well, which you didn't mention.
In case such as this, especially when a vmware.log file is available, I find it's much easier to use vmware-vdiskmanager to create a new virtual hard disk based on the facts in the vmware.log file and then provide the file to the User, as I did.