Corrupt vmware vmdk file

vmware-server

We're running VMware Server 2.0 as the host, and Windows 2003 as the guest. We started getting the error message below. From some quick searching it appears that we probably have a corrupt vmdk file. Any suggestions on tools to check the consistency or repair the vmdk file?

Message from server-1001.domain.com: Operation on file "F:\Virtual Machines\ati-ntserver1\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition-3.vmdk" failed.
If the file resides on a remote file system, please make sure your network connection and the server where this disk resides are functioning properly. If the file resides on removable media, reattach the media.
Choose Retry to attempt the operation again.
Choose Abort to terminate this session.
Choose Continue to forward the error to the guest operating system.

The is not on a remote file system or removable media. Pressing continue on the Guest will continue for a couple hours but then the error comes back.

Best Answer

If it is mounting and running for a while despite the message, perhaps the easiest way would be to clone the contents of the vmdk to a new vmdk file? (using traditional cloning or copy tools)

You can use the Vmware diskmount utility to mount the file as a normal disk in another machine and do the copy/clone from there.

Check the host event log for any disk related problems, it could still be the local storage acting up.