If you are unable to resume a virtual machine that had been suspended:
1. Navigate to the directory where the virtual machine’s files are located.
2.
Delete the file that ends in .vmss as well as any files or folders that end in .lck.Note: The suspend state of the virtual machine will be lost. This operation will replicate a physical machine having had its power unplugged.
Tag Archives: VMware
Shrink a VMware .VMDK virtual disk
Ran into an issue recently with one of my VMs. Wanted to back it up but was 200GB. I knew there wasn’t that much data on it anymore, it had just grown to that. But in Windows when you delete a file you don’t delete it really, Windows just flags it to be overwritten.
You can use this tool first but don’t think it’s needed. CCleaner and Fileshredder can do the same. That is, wipe the free space while in Windows.
In Windows go to a CMD and to the location of sdelete and type
sdelete -c
That cleans the free space. Then shut down the VM.
Once shut down go to a CMD and go to where VMWARE is installed. Mine is
D:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation
Then run vmware-vdiskmanager.exe to shrink the VM. This is done with the -k switch.
My VM was in a different location to the diskmanager tool so ended up like this
vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -k “f:\vm\test lab\xp.vmdk”
Once you hit enter you should see a Shrink: 0% meaning it’s started. Could take a while. I just left mine running while at work so don’t know how long it took.
The ” are needed it appears.
It works great. Mine went from 200GB to 26GB.
This site helped with this discovery.
http://www.itstuff.ca/2009/06/how-to-shrink-vmware-virtual-disk-files.html
I can never get into the BIOS under vmware
I can never get into the BIOS under vmware
Published on 11/12/2008 in General.
Just paste the following text into the image’s vmx file while it’s shut down:
bios.forceSetupOnce = “TRUE”
# The VMware Fusion BIOS posts too quickly to access.
Most users will not need to access the BIOS, but advanced users might want to do so, to change the boot order, set a boot password, or enable a second floppy drive. To work around this problem, use a text editor to add the following line to the configuration (.vmx) file of the virtual machine:
bios.forceSetupOnce = “TRUE”
The next time you boot up the virtual machine, it will automatically boot into the BIOS. This configuration option then reverts to FALSE. You must set the option to TRUE each time you want to boot the virtual machine into the BIOS.
http://ryanschwartz.net/2008/11/12/i-can-never-get-into-the-bios-under-vmware
VMware network issue
VMware
To copy a pre-made VM that you made earlier load it into VM then go to VM and Clone. If you don’t clone it and just manually copy it you’ll run into trouble. Because the VMs have specific MAC address assigned to them. When you do a clone, it creates a new MAC address for the clone. If you just copy it, it doesn’t and then you run into network issues. Because when both VMs are on at the same time, only one of them will be able to access the network.