Cannot Add VMWARE .vmdk File as Storage

[SamInTheBox]

I want to mount .vmdk file using VirtualBox.

During creating the virtual machine, the wizard went to 'hard drive' page. There I selected 'use an existing virtual hard drive file', pointing to the .vmdk file. After pressing 'create', the following error messages were shown:

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Failed to open the hard disk file K:\ovf\xxxxxx-disk1.vmdk.

Could not get the storage format of the medium 'K:\ovf\xxxxxx-disk1.vmdk' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80BB0005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {05f2bbb6-a3a6-4fb9-9b49-6d0dda7142ac}
Callee: IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}
Callee RC: VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80BB0001)
=======================================================================================

What is the problem? What should I do?

[mpack]

If you get that message then it isn't a valid or complete VMDK. Possibilities are that it has been truncated or corrupted in transit, or it's a snapshot (difference image), or it's one of the split file VMDK variants, and you don't have the complete set of files. Or, it never was a VMDK.

I tend towards the "it's one of the split file VMDK variants" scenario, given that the file is called "-disk1". If you see that there is often a "-disk2", "-disk3" and "-disk4" that should go with it, and a parent descriptor file which omits the "-diskN" suffix entirely.


Incidentally, OVFs need to be imported (install using File|Import...). It is not correct to build a VM around the (compressed) VMDK included in the OVF. But, unless the devs have changed something, this should not have produced that error - you should just have ended up with an inefficient VM.

If there is some reason why you can't import the VM, then use "VBoxManage clonehd ...." to convert the VMDK to VDI first.