If you have a VM that uses a similar virtual hardware version and OS, you can "trick" VMware into creating a descriptor for you. This is the safest method because it involves no manual text editing.

How to Recover VMDK From a Flat File: A Complete Guide When a VMware virtual machine (VM) fails to power on, the culprit is often a missing or corrupted disk descriptor file. While the large -flat.vmdk file contains the actual raw data, it cannot be mounted without its small companion descriptor file.

Recover Vmdk From Flat File [extra Quality] Jun 2026

If you have a VM that uses a similar virtual hardware version and OS, you can "trick" VMware into creating a descriptor for you. This is the safest method because it involves no manual text editing.

How to Recover VMDK From a Flat File: A Complete Guide When a VMware virtual machine (VM) fails to power on, the culprit is often a missing or corrupted disk descriptor file. While the large -flat.vmdk file contains the actual raw data, it cannot be mounted without its small companion descriptor file. recover vmdk from flat file