vi WindowsServer.vmdk Here is a standard template for a monolithic sparse or monolithic flat disk. You must change the values in brackets.
Run this command against the flat file:
Disaster Recovery: How to Manually Restore a Corrupt or Missing VMDK Descriptor File restore vmdk descriptor file
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 vi WindowsServer
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"
Have you recovered a VM using this method? Let me know in the comments below! But its tiny sibling, the descriptor file ( vmname
Don't panic. You don't need backups of the entire VM to fix this. You just need to rebuild a 1KB text file.