Tech writers seem like broken records.. Backup.. test backup.. test again.. make more backups… That is until your backups don’t work. Suddenly, they sound like wisened sages.

I had a file level copy of a .vmdk file that had a snapshot. (file-000002.vdmk) Backing these up individually at separate times breaks the snapshot and leaves your virtual machine a limp old biscuit. If their internal date stamps don’t match up exactly, VMware goes bonkos!

First thing to remember is DON’T TRY TO BOOT. This makes the .vmdk break even further by changing the internal access dates.

http://www.gorillapond.com found a quick edit fix.

Even better is to save VMDK files (and VM folders) on a SAN. This proved effective for my second round of mess-ups– thank goodness for double snapshots.