Recover Virtual Machine From Flat Vmdk Official

Attach a Linux live CD or Windows recovery media → repair bootloader.

The VM will now see the disk with all partitions and data intact. recover virtual machine from flat vmdk

To recover a VMware virtual machine when you only have the -flat.vmdk file, you must recreate its missing (the small .vmdk text file that tells the hypervisor how to read the raw data). This situation typically occurs if a VM appears "missing" in the datastore browser or triggers a "File not found" error despite the large data file still existing. Attach a Linux live CD or Windows recovery