Steps to add an Existing Hard Disk to a Virtual Machine

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

How to mount vmdk from one VM to another to copy data between VMs.

Environment

vCenter Server 7.x

vCenter Server 8.x

Resolution

• Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select the 'Edit Settings' option.
• On the Virtual Hardware tab, click the 'Add New Device' button.
• Select 'Existing Hard Disk' from the drop-down menu, and the 'Select File' dialog box opens.
• In the Select File window, expand the Datastore where the vmdk that we are attaching is residing. Select the virtual machine folder, and select the disk to add.
• Then click OK.
• The disk file appears in the Contents column. The File Type drop-down menu shows the compatibility file types for this disk.
• Expand the 'New Hard disk' and make further customizations for the hard disk if needed.
• Click OK.