Hello everybody!
This video will show you how to create a VMWare Workstation virtual machine, and how to recover
data from a virtual disk of such machine after a failure or when the virtual machine can’t
start.
In order to create a VMWare Workstation virtual machine:
• Install and run VMWare Workstation • Select “Create a New Virtual Machine”
in the homepage of the program or select File / New Virtual Machine
• In the New Virtual Machine Wizard that opens choose the type of wizard to create
a virtual machine: typical or custom.
Typical is an easier and recommended method to create a virtual machine in a few steps.
Custom will be better for advanced users and suggests the opportunity to change additional
settings.
• Select Typical, to begin with.
After all, advanced users choose this configuration more often than the other option, as it is
quite good for most cases.
• Next • In the window “Select a Guest Operating
System” you need to choose from where you are going to install the operating system
for your virtual machine - from an installation disc or an image file.
The option you choose depends on what installation media you have.
The installation process itself will be the same.
There is also an option “I will install an operating system later.”
I don’t recommend choosing it, because installation of an operating system on a virtual machine
requires certain experience and skills of working with the BIOS of such virtual machine.
• I select an ISO image.
• Next • In the next window, specify the operating
system.
In our case, that is Microsoft Windows.
Version - Windows 10 64-bit
Please note that you can install onto your virtual machine not only Windows, but also
other operating systems, including Linux.
• Next • Specify the name of the virtual machine
• And the folder where it should be saved.
• Next • Set the disk capacity.
It can be anything you like.
But it’s better to have at least 30 Gb, and make sure that your hard disk still has
enough space after you create the virtual machine.
That is because your virtual machine may become larger in the course of work.
• Also, decide if you want to store the disc as a single file or split it into multiple
files.
• In the following window, you will see all virtual machine settings.
If there is something you don’t like, you can also use extra settings.
 For example, I can see that the amount of system memory is insufficient - 2 Gb only.
In order to add more memory, click on Customize Hardware.
 Find the line Memory in the left-side list and set its amount at 4 Gb.
To make sure the virtual machine is not going to be too hard for your PC to handle, I recommend
setting its memory size at no more than 50% of the actual memory available.
• Here, you can also decide how many processors and processor cores your machine will have.
Follow the same principle as with random-access memory - no more than 50% of the available
resources.
• Connect a physical disk to this virtual machine, set up the network adapter, USB controller,
sound card, printer and display.
• After all the settings are changed, click Close.
• Finish.
Now the virtual machine is set and ready to start:
• Click on the icon in VMware Workstation toolbar, Power on.
• The virtual machine starts and Windows is installed from ISO image that you have
specified in the settings before.
Installing Windows on a VMware Workstation virtual machine is similar to making a clean
installation on a desktop or laptop computer.
That is why I won’t go into details.
Watch another video by our channel to see clean installation of Windows
After the operating system is installed, you will have another (that is, virtual) operating
system that works inside the operating system of your computer.
All files of this operating system (both system files and user files) are stored on the computer’s
hard disk, and by default they are located in the Documents folder:
C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Virtual Machines\VirtualMachineName A virtual machine folder consists of a certain
set of files.
VMware creates such separate folder for every virtual machine and gives it the name of the
virtual machine which was given to it by the user, when such virtual operating system was
installed.
Main files of a virtual machine have the following extensions:
• *.log – VMware Workstation key activity log.
• *.nvram – the file containing conditions and BIOS settings of the virtual machine
• *.vmdk – a virtual disk file where contents of the virtual machine hard disk are stored
*.vmsd – the file containing current snapshot parameters
• *.vmx – the main configuration file where all virtual machine parameters are stored
• *.vmxf – an additional configuration file.
The files we have described above are the main files of a virtual machine.
In the folder of the virtual machine there can be other files and folders as well, including
those which are only shown when the machine is running.
If you already have a virtual machine or a copy of such machine, you can connect it to
VMware Workstation.
To do it: • Just run VMware Workstation and select
File / Open.
• Go to the folder where the virtual machine is stored
• and select the .vmx file • Open
• Start the opened virtual machine
In this video, I want to show you one trick, just in case if for some reason your virtual
machine is no longer working, and there are important files on its disks.
I will show you how to recover them.
Though VMware Workstation is a virtual machine, real data can be saved there.
As we have already said, all files stored in virtual machine disks are located in .vmdk
files of the virtual disk.
Hetman Partition Recovery, the program for hard disk data recovery, has the function
of mounting virtual disks and recovering data from such disks.
You can download Hetman Partition Recovery here
In order to get access to virtual machine files:
1.
Run Hetman Partition Recovery and mount the virtual machine disk.
If there are several of them, you can mount them all at once or one by one.
 To mount a virtual disk with the help of Hetman Partition Recovery, click on Mount
Disk in the quick access menu of the program.
As a result, the window of choosing a virtual disk will open.
 Go to the folder containing the virtual machine and choose the necessary .vmdk file.
 Open
2.
As you do that, the section “Mounted Disks” containing the list of mounted virtual disks
will appear in the window, where all disks found by the application are shown.
If you mount several disks, you will see the entire disk list there.
3.
Scan the disk with the application by double-clicking on the disk in the disk manager.
4.
After the analysis, the application will show the directory tree of the scanned disk.
5.
Find and recover the necessary files to a convenient location in your main operating
system.
By the way, you can use this method to move files from a virtual machine disk to the main
operating system.
That is all for now.
If you liked this video, click the Like button below and subscribe to our channel to see
more.
We’ll be glad to answer any questions in comments.
Thank you for watching and good luck!