Verifying Fusion virtual machine file integrity

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article guides you through the process of determining whether one or more of your virtual machine's files are corrupt. Corrupt virtual machine files can result in being unable to perform operations on a virtual machine. These operations include powering it on, taking a snapshot, and modifying the virtual disks.

Symptoms:

• You cannot power on the virtual machine
• You cannot take a snapshot of the virtual machine
• You see one of these errors:
  • File not found.
  • This file is required to power on this virtual machine. If this file was moved, please provide its new location.
  • Check for missing files failed.
  • A needed file was not found.

Environment

VMware Fusion 11.x
VMware Fusion Pro 8.x
VMware Fusion 7.x
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Fusion Pro 11.x
VMware Fusion 10.x
VMware Fusion 5.x
VMware Fusion 4.x
VMware Fusion 3.x
VMware Fusion 8.x
VMware Fusion Pro 10.x
VMware Fusion 2.x

Resolution

Each step below provides instructions and a link to a document, for performing the step and taking corrective action as necessary. The steps are ordered in the most appropriate sequence to isolate the issue and identify the proper resolution. They are also ordered in the most appropriate sequence to minimize data loss. After each step, try powering on the virtual machine again. Work through each troubleshooting step in order, and do not skip a step.

If you perform a corrective action in any of the following steps, check whether the issue has been resolved.

To troubleshoot this issue:

1. Restart your Mac.
    
2. If the virtual machine has a snapshot, confirm that its parent disks have not been modified. For more information, see Verifying the integrity of Fusion parent virtual disks (1022037).
    
3. Confirm that you have a valid virtual machine configuration ( .vmx) file. For more information, see Validating the .vmx settings of a virtual machine in Fusion (1021185).
4. Confirm that you have a virtual disk (.vmdk) file for each virtual disk defined for the virtual machine, that you have all of its slices, and that it is named correctly. To confirm this:
    
   1. Shut down your virtual machine.
   2. If you know that you have renamed a virtual machine file without using the Fusion interface or via vmware-vdiskmanager, rename the file to what it used to be named.
   3. Open the virtual machine settings ( .vmx) file. For details, see Editing the .vmx file for your Fusion virtual machine (1014782).
   4. Confirm that the files which are specified in the .vmx exist in the virtual machine bundle and verify that they have the same file names. If they do not, but there are other files in the directory with the same file extension and a different name, rename these files to match the name given in the .vmx file.
   5. If your virtual disk is split into 2GB files, confirm that all of the split files – for both the snapshots and the base virtual disk – are present. You should have a number of split-disk files equal to the size of the virtual disk allocated to your virtual machine in GB, plus one. (For example, a virtual machine with a 40GB virtual disk should have 21 split-disk files.)
      
      If you are missing a file specified in the .vmx file, or a split-disk file, you need to restore the missing file(s) from backup.
       
5. Verify whether the virtual machine runs in Fusion on another Mac or in VMware Workstation on a Windows or Linux PC.
   • If it does, the issue is with your computer and the Mac OS installation. For more information, see Verifying the health of an operating system (1003956).
   • If it does not, the virtual machine is irreparably damaged. Restore the virtual machine from a backup or recreate it.

Additional Information