File Not Found: Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk

[jamesdmc]

I know there are lots of threads regarding “.vmdk File Not Found” errors. But the more I read, the more confused I get. So here’s my story and I hope there’s a simple solution.

There are two users on this mac: my wife and me. I only have one virtual machine and it’s in a shared folder. The path is Macintosh HD/Users/Shared/Virtual Machines/Windows XP Home Edition.vmwarevm (see attachment "fusion filepath.png"). When I “Show Package Contents” I can see that the .vmdk file is there (see attachment "fusion vmdk.png).

When I am logged in, I can boot up the virtual machine with no problems. In fact, neither my wife nor I had any problems initializing the virtual machine until I did a snapshot back on June 6th. I was logged in at the time. Since then, I can still start up the vm, but my wife gets the dreaded “File Not Found: Windows XP Home Edition-00001.vmdk This file is required to power on this virtual machine. If this file was moved, please provide its new location.”

Okay. So while logged in to my wife's account, I click the "browse" button and try to point to the file path where the file resides, but the "Windows XP Home Edition.vmwarevm" is greyed out and I can't select it (see "cant point to file location.png).

From what I've read, this might have something to do with having permission to make a snapshot or something like that, but I don't know how to set permissions. So how do I set it up so that we can continue to share this one virtual machine, but also have permission to take snapshots without messing things up. We both have administrator rights on this computer. Thanks.

James

[admin]

From what I've read, this might have something to do with having permission to make a snapshot or something like that

From what you describe, this does sound likely. The problem is (probably) actually that your wife's account doesn't have permissions to read/write the snapshot.

but I don't know how to set permissions.

Make sure the virtual machine is shut down and Fusion isn't running. In the Finder in your account, do a Get Info on the snapshot files (in your case, "Windows XP Home Edition-000001.vmdk", the .vmem, and the .vmsn files). Make sure that your wife's account can read/write them - if you're not sure, look at the permissions on one of the other files (e.g. the .vmx file).

[jamesdmc]

Thanks for responding, etung.

I did a Get Info on the following files:

Windows XP Home Edition-000001.vmdk

Windows XP Home Edition-Snapshot3.vmem

Windows XP Home Edition-Snapshot3.vmsn

Each of these files had my account as "read & write" and everyone else as "read only". So I changed everyone else to "read & write". While I was there, I also did a Get Info on Windows XP Home Edtion.vmdk and Windows XP Home Edition.vmx. Those were already set to "read & write" for everyone. At this point, all files within vmwarevm are set to "read & write", but it still says in can't find Windows XP Home Edition-000001.vmdk.

Could this be as simple as reverting to the original snapshot? I'm just not sure how much data I'd lose by doing that.

James

[admin · Accepted solution]

Each of these files had my account as "read & write" and everyone else as "read only". So I changed everyone else to "read & write". While I was there, I also did a Get Info on Windows XP Home Edtion.vmdk and Windows XP Home Edition.vmx. Those were already set to "read & write" for everyone. At this point, all files within vmwarevm are set to "read & write", but it still says in can't find Windows XP Home Edition-000001.vmdk.

Hmm, attach the .vmx file?

Could this be as simple as reverting to the original snapshot? I'm just not sure how much data I'd lose by doing that.

That should work; you would lose any data since the snapshot was taken. Alternately, choose Virtual Machine > Discard Snapshot - this merges your changes back to the base disk so you won't lose them (you're discarding the ability to go back to the time the snapshot was taken, not the data).

[WoodyZ]

In addition to what Eric has said "Alternately, choose Virtual Machine > Discard Snapshot - this merges your changes back to the base disk so you won't lose them (you're discarding the ability to go back to the time the snapshot was taken, not the data)."...

If you can still boot the target Virtual Machine while under your Account then I would do this first and backup your data off of the Virtual Machine to either the Host or a Network Share or optical media before using the Discard Snapshot and or the Revert to Snapshot commands.

[jamesdmc]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I've been so busy lately, I haven't had time to try anything out. I'll report back once I do.

James

[jamesdmc]

Success! Believe it or not, I've just now found the time to try out a suggestion from this thread. I discarded the snapshot and now my wife can launch Fusion without getting the error. My only concern now is this: a while ago, I did a snapshot from her account and I was unable to launch Windows. And just recently I did a snapshot from my account and she couldn't launch Windows. Something is still wrong here. If you look at the 3rd post in this thread, you'll see that I set all files within vmwarevm to "read &write", but I still had the problem.

We're okay for now, and I'll mark this one as "Yes, my question has been answered", but I'm still puzzled as to why neither of us can take a snapshot without messing up the other account.

Again, thanks to all who participated.

James