What are the files having VMDK extension

[Emma.J]

While working on virtual machines cases today, i came across files having VMDK extensions. I have never seen before this file on normal machines i have worked.

Regarding to my studies, i need to know what is VMDK files. Could you guys please explain me about VMDK extension files ?

[jesse]

VMDK is virtual disk file - virtual partition with data and installed operating system (Micosoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, MS-DOS etc.) It stores the contents of the virtual machine's hard disk drive and is used by VMware to run as a virtual machine (under host operating system).A virtual disk is made up of one or more .vmdk files.You can create either dynamic or fixed virtual disks. With dynamic disks, the disks start small and grow as the disk inside the guest OS grows.There may be more than one such file. The ### indicates a unique suffix added automatically by VMware Workstation to avoid duplicate file names.

[Calvin K]

VMDK is a virtual disk file, which stores the contents of the virtual machine's hard disk drive.This file stores changes made to a virtual disk while the virtual machine is running.With fixed disks, the virtual disk and guest OS disk start out at the same (large) disk. You cannot see the properties of VMDK in Console, since it uses Ghost explorer to open the image. If you have specified that the virtual disk should be split into 2GB chunks, the number of .vmdk files depends on the size of the virtual disk.If the virtual machine is connected directly to a physical disk, rather than a virtual disk the information the .vmdk file stores information about the partitions the virtual machine is allowed to access. The earlier VMware products used the extension. dsk for virtual disk files.

[Emma.J]

That is all i needed to know. Now i can handle this file easily. One of my friend has told about a application that is Vmdk2Vhd, can be used to convert virtual hard drive images from VMWare's VMDK format into the Microsoft's VHD format. At that time i was confused about this software but now i got aware of it. Thank you for helping me. Keep it up friends. !!!