Relieved but paranoid, she ran a second tool: chkdsk /f inside the recovered VM. A few orphaned files, nothing more.
This is the safest first step. It attempts to mount the disk using the VMware installer engine, which can often fix minor header inconsistencies. fix corrupt vmdk file
vmkfstools -x check /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/FinanceVM/FinanceVM.vmdk Relieved but paranoid, she ran a second tool:
“Alright, VMDK,” she muttered, “let’s see how bad it is.” Relieved but paranoid