Renaming a « VMDK » file in VSphere


I have a VMDK file that was used for a Windows Server VM as a secondary disk to store only archive files. When I had to scrap the VM and redo it from 0. As any lazy admin would do, I tried to be smart and just reinstall the OS on a different VMDK and copy over the secondary VMDK, rename it, attach it to the virtual machine and off you go…

Things are never as easy as you imagine it would be with computer systems J. Here is another adventure of just a renaming simple VMDK file;

If VSphere Gui doesn’t let you rename a file, you can do it through a PuttY ssh session; 

  • Open an SSH session to one of your hosts.
  •  Browse to your DataStore which has the VMDK file.cd /vmfs/volumes/DatastoreName/originalname
  • Use the following command to rename a file;
       vmkfstools -E "originalname.vmdk" "newname.vmdk"


For more information about manipulating files in datastores or using the “vmkfstools”;

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1029513
Location: Mont Royal, Montreal, QC H3V, Canada

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