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.

January 5, 2010
johnkmx

Perfect. Thanks for sharing.
January 19, 2010
futureOpen

thanks….it worked
February 16, 2010
Aswin

Thank u so much it worked !!!!
February 28, 2010
dani

thanks
March 6, 2010
Rob

I am not a vmware techie and know enough to be dangerous…have the lock file situation and understand the fix but do no know how to get to the folders\files on the vm to delete them. Any help greatly appreciated.
March 11, 2010
Ismael

Thanks, saved my bacon. Otherwise I would have to rebuild the vm’s.
March 19, 2010
Sangy

Thanks…!! it works..but I could not understand why it was happened ?
April 2, 2010
leo

thanks a lot you saved my filelife 😀
April 4, 2010
Sumanth

Thanks a lot pal! That worked brilliant
April 13, 2010
Oscar GF

Funcionó! Gracias!
It worked! Thanks!
April 27, 2010
Ali Abooali

Excellent!!!! …. Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
May 10, 2010
Sam

Thanks 🙂 I thought I lost all of my TV shows. You’re a life saver.
May 17, 2010
alban YANDZI

thanks for your help my server is working now.
May 31, 2010
Maher

if it doesn’t work rename the disk
June 1, 2010
bangjon

okay it’s work. with only remove .lck folder. thanks brother
June 5, 2010
rama\

Thank u so much it worked !!!!
June 7, 2010
Pagesofjoy

Thank a ton It worked.
June 15, 2010
NiceGuy

Thanks, that saved my ass 😉 thank you very much! Brilliant!
June 19, 2010
Sandro

Thanks from Russia 🙂
June 28, 2010
Sean Taylor

Thank you very much. I have just deleted the .lck folders and I could power on my Virtual Machine. Do you know why this situation could happened?
July 2, 2010
Duncan

Thank you very well written guide solved the problem in seconds (my computer had crashed whilst the VM was running).
July 17, 2010
Gerhard

Saved my day! Thanks
July 22, 2010
darkskull

YEAH!!! Work fine!!! Thanks
July 22, 2010
alex

I have deleted the .lck folder and now it still would not work it shows another error (Cannot open the disk ‘..-..’) Reason: The specified virtual disk needs repair. and when i restore those folders back it shows me the first error message ( Failed to lock the file.)

and it doesn’t let me to change the drive Letter i believe due to the error
July 27, 2010
haris

thanks
August 26, 2010
Sandeep

it worked. thanks.
September 15, 2010
Bogdan

It solved my problem.
Thank you!
September 17, 2010
Subu

Nice, worked just as normal. Thanks
September 18, 2010
Project Management Tools That Work (Bruce)

Worked. Thanks.
September 26, 2010
fahad

thanks a lot
October 12, 2010
Srinivas

Thank you so much , It worked for me.
October 14, 2010
andre

Thanks your a life saver.
October 19, 2010
Alin

bangjon:

okay it’s work. with only remove .lck folder. thanks brother

THANX!!!
I’m a newbie in VMware but that think worked smooth !
October 20, 2010
Name (required)

I’d like to thnk you lot, my server it work now.
So good
October 28, 2010
dfxmaster

thanks solve my problem

valew véio
November 9, 2010
ES

Thanks. It worked for me! 😉
November 9, 2010
ES

What happened was that my PC was abruptly shut down because of a power surge, so the VMware didn’t have time to unlock the file.
And by deleting those files, the VMware will automatically create new ones to supress the old deleted ones.
Everything should be OK like old files and configurations you had prior to the incident.
November 15, 2010
sutasu

Thank you very much! I works 🙂
November 15, 2010
sutasu

* it works
🙂
November 18, 2010
eData

Saved my days. Thanks a lot.
November 20, 2010
Yusuf

thanks a lot
November 26, 2010
punchiri

Thanks it works…
very helpful
November 29, 2010
maykon

tks.
December 28, 2010
passer

Thhank you very much,
I hardly uninstall vmware workstation!~
January 4, 2011
masud

it works dude as said,
thanks a lot
January 4, 2011
Name (required)

it worked! thx a lot!
January 13, 2011
Amit

Tahnk you So much Awasome!!!!!!
January 26, 2011
terence

Thanks, thanks, thanks very much; I cloned my 120gb drive to 250 on SUSE and after, i thought i lost my CCNA stuff, I followed you recommendation and i am back in business, thanks again.
February 5, 2011
raj

Thanks a lot.. it worked