VMWare Fusion: How do I combine muliple numbered vmdk files into a -flat.vmdk file?

Question

I'm on Mac 10.6.6 using VM Ware Fusion 3.1.2. I created a Windows 7 image, but when I examine the files that make up the image, there are 21 "extent" files -- e.g. files with names like

Windows 7-s001.vmdk Windows 7-s002.vmdk Windows 7-s003.vmdk ...

Ultimately I want to convert this to something that an be used by VirtualBox, and so to do that, I need to get a single vmdk (-flat.vmdk) file. Does anyone know how to generate a single file given the multiple files I have now?

Thanks, - Dave

Numismatology

Answer 1

Virtual Machine - Settings - Hard Disk -> Uncheck "Split into 2GB files" and press Apply :)

Minoru

FYI: This feature is not in VMware Workstation 11.1 – Tribal

Answer 2

For those who (like I did) may end up here looking for how to do this on ESXi (CLI): There is no vmware-vdiskmanager. Instead, use vmkfstools:

vmkfstools --clonevirtualdisk source.vmdk dest.vmdk

Mccormack

Answer 3

I have also had success doing this using the command line. Kind of heavy lifting, though - one has to RTFM and Google search carefully to find the right incantations.

look in

/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager

see -r for the "convert" option

Fridafriday

Yep. A similar thing can be done on Windows too (you can find the Disk Manager tool in C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation). More information about the available command line options can be found here. – Longfaced

Full command: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe –r thefirstfile.vmdk –t 0 singlefile.vmdk You can find vmware-vdiskmanager in the folder mentioned above. Credit goes to mahmoudthoughts.com/2009/07/… for the command. After you combine it, you'll need to point your VM at the new disk. – Dank