Workstation 9: Something stupid - unpleasant situation

[zaphod2]

Hello,

I did something extraordinary:

I have deleted a text file inside
the VM. The VM is encrypted.
Because VM Workstation 9 still is not
able to map encrypted virtual disk files
I decided to insert the backup vmdk file
into the running vm to take the file
from the backup disk.

Everything fine. I have the file again. Good.

But: The inserted backup vmdk cannot be removed
anymore. Even worse: I can not start the vm
until this backup vmdk is present (it resides
on an external usb drive). The remove button
is greyed out.

Again: The VM is encrypted. It is not very
simple to remove encryption because the disk file
is now very big and there is the need to have
double the vmdk size to remove it.

Does anybody have an idea how to remove the

unused drives (Disks 3 & 4)?

PS: During adding the additional disks an old snapshot

of the VM was present. This one I have deleted. Still

not possible to remove the disks.

Yours

Holger

[continuum]

Can you still boot or operate  the VM ?

If yes - I would suggest to unencrypt the VM if that is still possible.

Are you sure that using encrypted vms is a good idea ?
IMHO this procedure is way to fragile to use it for important data - and then it no longer makes sense at all.

I would decrypt both vmdks and then create a complete new VM with the decrypted vmdks.

If that is not your plan we need more details

[zaphod2]

Hello,

yes, the VM is operable without problems.

Within the VM I can set the drives again from "online" to "offline" so that WIndows doesn't use them.

Only problem is that the additional drives 3 and 4 have to be reachable while booting or

operating the VM.

VM Workstation ecryption for me is useful. Bitlocker does not run within a VM. Truecrpyt could be a

option on the host or within the VM. But if in this case something happens, everything

gets lost. With VM Workstation encryption I still can "mount" the disks (as I did). Advantage of using

truecrpyt is to have an open vmx- file to edit.

Seems that the only option now ist to decrpyt the VM. For that I need a bigger host drive.

Question:

The VM's C: drive (DISK1) is on the host's C: drive.

The VM's 😧 drive (DISK2) is on the host's 😧 drive (much bigger)

Disk space either on C: nor on 😧 enough to decrpyt.

Seems that 😧 (DISK2) has to be on the right location ("D:\Virtual Machines\MONTEVELO\MONTEVELO_DISK2.vmdk")

Can I put DISK1 on another Host drive (there is no path in the VM configuration for that disk: "MONTEVELO_Disk1.vmdk") for decryption?

I also expect that now Workstation wants to decrypt all the four drives. For this I need a very large disk.

Yours

Holger

[zaphod2]

Hello,

after taking the vmx file from backup now everyting is fine.

Now focus is to remove encryption somehow- this feature is too buggy.

Yours

Holger

[continuum]

> Now focus is to remove encryption somehow- this feature is too buggy.

I agree - if necessary you could boot into a LiveCD and dd the drives to a networkshare ... that would remove the encryption

[zaphod2]

Hi,

finally now encryption could be removed by copying everything to a big harddrive.

I was lucky that at least I was asked to browse the location of second disk

during power on (this was not possible by editing the configuration).

Further I have been asked during power on if the VM was "moved" or "copied".

Choosing "moved" caused the VM not able to boot (Windows start error).