Monday 30 December 2013

VMWare Workstation split (multiple) to monolithic (single) virtual machine disk (vmdk)

While evaluating BackupChain a requirement was to convert a VM from a multiple (or "split") disk configuration to a single (or "monolithic") disk configuration.  (This is because certain features of BackupChain currently - and unfortunately - only work with single vmdks).

VMWare's Virtual Disk Manager was all I needed, after stopping the VM:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\vmware-vdiskmanager.exe" -r Orignal.vmdk -t 0 NewSingle.vmdk

I then removed the Orignal.vmdk and it's associated Orignial-s###.vmdk files and renamed NewSingle.vmdk to Original.vmdk.  The VM fired up perfectly in the new configuration.


References

Virtual Disk Manager User Guide
Split vs. Monolithic Virtual Disks