Recover Virtual Machine From Flat Vmdk May 2026

# Disk DescriptorFile version=1 CID=12345678 parentCID=ffffffff createType="vmfs" RW 83886080 VMFS "recovered-flat.vmdk" The Disk Data Base ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic" ddb.geometry.cylinders = "5221" ddb.geometry.heads = "255" ddb.geometry.sectors = "63" ddb.longContentID = "abcdef1234567890" ddb.thinProvisioned = "1" ddb.virtualHWVersion = "13"

Introduction If you have ever browsed a VMware datastore, you have likely seen two files for a single virtual disk: a small .vmdk (descriptor file) and a large -flat.vmdk (raw data file). When the descriptor file is missing, corrupted, or accidentally deleted, the VM cannot be powered on or registered—even though your actual data is safe inside the -flat.vmdk . recover virtual machine from flat vmdk

This guide explains exactly how to recover a fully functional virtual machine from a flat VMDK file. | File | Purpose | |------|---------| | vmname.vmdk | Small text descriptor (disk geometry, CID, parent link, etc.) | | vmname-flat.vmdk | Raw binary data (all VM contents: OS, files, partitions) | | File | Purpose | |------|---------| | vmname