Failed to lock the file! VMWare virtual disk (vmdk)

Posted by Ivan

/ March 12, 2008 / 297 Comments

I copied one of my Windows XP virtual machine running on a VMWare Server 1.02 system locally to my workstation. After the files were copied I opened the vmx file with VMWare Workstation 6 and received the following error below after trying to start the virtual machine. The virrtual machine contained one snapshot on the VMWare Server.

Cannot open the disk ‘C:\VM-machines\Windows XP-001\Windows XP Professional-000001.vmdk’ or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: Failed to lock the file.

Locate the virtual machine in Windows Explorer and delete any .lck folders

Start the virtual machine. If boot process will fail, try to Map the virtual hard disk to Z:\ for example.

I then disconnect the virtual hard disk and tried again. The virtual machine boot without any problem and my snapshot was still valid. Deleting the .lck folder saved me a lot of work.

September 27, 2008
BT

Thanks! Worked for me.

–BT
September 29, 2008
tex

I virtualized a fisical machine but when i tried to open on workstation i got the same error: failed to lock the file. So i removed the 2 folders .lck but when starting again the machine i get this error: Cannot connect virtual device ide1:1. No corresponding device is available on the host.
It tries to open but as soon as windows screen appears i get a blu screen! i tried to map the drive to z as you suggested but i get the same error.
Can you helpme please. thanks
November 22, 2008
Ragu

Thank you for your post, it worked great! thanks for sharing the knowledge!
November 22, 2008
kotwun10

Works! Great Tip
December 1, 2008
Ngo viet yen

Wow i did it. Great thanks.
December 4, 2008
Simon

Worked for me as well!
thanx
December 30, 2008
anonymous

Thanks so much for sharing this with us. 🙂
January 13, 2009
John

Yep ty, worked 4 me.
January 19, 2009
boby2k

tks a lot
February 23, 2009
nye

Very very thanks!
February 26, 2009
Captain Solo

I had a similar problem after a power outage. In /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/ there are 2 folders which end in .lck. Deleting both of these solved my problem
March 2, 2009
Me

Thanks worked for me as well and I was running Ubuntu on VM not windows!
March 6, 2009
Tarcio

Worked. Thanks.
March 11, 2009
Dopu

Worked. Thanks.
March 18, 2009
belson

Thanks… it worked
March 26, 2009
P4W3R

You are the best
April 9, 2009
carlo

Grasia fiera, me rre sirbio
April 26, 2009
Gilbert M Hale

Renaming the .lck files (safer than deleting until I verified it would work ) worked perfectly for me. I am running VMware Server 2 under an Ubuntu Server v-8.04 64 bit platform, Dell Precision T3400 8Gb RAM machine.

I had been running several VMware Workstation machines under XP Pro with VMware Workstation v-6.5 with a Dell Vostro 220 4Gb RAM machine, and wanted to migrate the virtual machines to the VMWare Server 2 for better load balancing, and on a higher RAM machine for greater concurrent virtual machine density. Imagine my surprise when the first imported machine worked great. The others did not, until I renamed the .lck files. Your post saved me hours of setting up new virtual machines.

Thank You!

Gil
May 12, 2009
ruch

Wow, thanks a lot, u saved so much of my time 😀
May 13, 2009
leezo

Thanks a million that worked 🙂
May 14, 2009
ugo montorsi

ho lo stesso problema ho fatto le seguenti prove:
ho la vmware server con windows 2003 server su server linux red hat 5 enterprise edition
1: cliccando su start mi dà l’errore:
Unable to Power On virtual machine with “A General System error occurred: Internal error”
2: ps -eaf|grep vmware
root 26375 19955
Message from hyperion.sin.it: Cannot open the disk ‘/u03/VMachine/W2k3PLA/W2k3PLA.vmdk’ or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: Failed to lock the file.
qual’è il pid è 26375 o 19955
3: devo fare kill 26375 o kill 19955
e riavviare la virtual machine?
aspetto una mail di risposta.
grazie cordiali saluti
dott. ugo montorsi
May 28, 2009
Brian

Thanks a million… worked for me and saved my VM!
June 2, 2009
Pallav

Cheers, Works Like A Beauty
June 8, 2009
mj

thanks
June 19, 2009
roly

gracias fiera me sirvio mucho ya lo daba por muerto mi maquina virtual
June 27, 2009
pk

Thanks dude. It worked………
July 9, 2009
Jeff

Awesome. You are my hero.
July 22, 2009
Babu

Excellent!!!!! It works for us, thankyou very much!
July 28, 2009
Prasanjit

Thanks it worked great for me
August 3, 2009
Jokohanho

Thanks. It worked for me aswell!
August 6, 2009
Rich

Great, worked perfectly! Cheers!
August 21, 2009
Biliballa

Nice! It worked!
August 27, 2009
Niels Brinch

Just wanted to add my name to the long list of people who solved their problem from this tip. Thanks.
September 2, 2009
dom

thanks… worked for me too. good job.
September 3, 2009
Mehr

Thanks a bunch!!….You saved so much of my time!
September 3, 2009
philip

Thanks!!
September 7, 2009
Prashant

thanks a lot … it really saved a lot of time .it was great help .
September 21, 2009
totad

thanks it worked
October 10, 2009
Klaus

Thanks, great information, solved my issue 🙂
October 13, 2009
Rherrera

muy bien, muchas gracias. Thanks.
October 20, 2009
beny

dzieki wszytko dział!
thx everty thing work
October 22, 2009
Paul

I’d just like to add my thanks too! I had my heart in my mouth when I thought I’d possible lost yesterdays development work but everything is running again. Thanks!
November 3, 2009
Ahasan Kabir

Thanks a lot. It is grate solution.
When i upgrade from VMServer 1.8 to VMWare Server 2.0, I can’t open my os. I am confuse what i can do, after that i try to find the solution. From this site i get solution. Just i delete the two lock the from vm directory as per recommendation. Thanks a lot.
November 7, 2009
Rigo

Excelente!!!
November 13, 2009
Oberon

I ran into the same problem when I moved from VMWare server to VMWare Workstation. Your solution worked for me too. Thanks for sharing!
December 14, 2009
Ced

The error occurs most of the times because VMware finds a lock directory in the same directory as the VHD.
The simple solution is to remove this directory (you’ll recognize it by the extension ‘.lck’)
The error is most likely caused by a wrong shutdown of VMware (either it crashed, or your PC crashed, or you just broke it. whatever applies 😛 )

Happy virtualizing~
December 28, 2009
Bryan

Exactly what I needed. Thanks a ton 🙂
December 29, 2009
Roderick

Excellent! That is all i need to know! Worked great.
December 29, 2009
Zembold

Thanks! 😉