This article provides solutions for situations where a virtual machine (VM) fails to power on due to missing or invalid virtual machine disk (VMDK) descriptor files or snapshot chain issues. The errors typically encountered include:
"Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/volume/vm/vm-000002.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on."
"Cannot open disk '/vmfs/volumes/volume/vm/vm-000002.vmdk': The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created (18)."
In the VM's vmware.log
, you may see messages similar to:
vmx| DISKLIB-LINK : "myvm.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).
vmx| DISKLIB-CHAIN : "myvm.vmdk" : failed to open (The system cannot find the file specified).
The virtual machine cannot power on and reports errors about missing files or disk dependencies. The error typically involves missing VMDK descriptor or data files, or an inconsistent snapshot chain.
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x
These errors can occur due to:
vmName.vmdk
vmName-flat.vmdk
or vmName-separse.vmdk
vmName-######.vmdk
-flat.vmdk
, -delta.vmdk
, or -sesparse.vmdk
files are missing, the VM may need to be restored from a backup or the original data source.The parent virtual disk has been modified since the child was created
," you may need to consolidate the snapshot chain or restore the VM from a backup.Raw Device Mapping (RDM) Disks:
-flat
or -sesparse
files for the base disk.
vmName-rdmp.vmdk
.vmName-rdm.vmdk
.Other Useful Documentation:
For more information, see: