OS X - Reading vmdk files

Is there any way I can browse or convert vmdk files into a format that lets me browse the files contained in them.

3 Answers

There is an app for that: A special tool which can mount virtual disk on OS X.

VMware Fusion includes a tool named "VMDK Mounter". It is installed into /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion. If you wish you can right click on one of the virtual machine bundles and choose open with then browse for the application. When you browse navigate the path mentioned above and then select VMDKmounter.

Note however, that you can only mount the VMDK if it formatted with a filesystem which is understood by MacOS (HFS and FAT in different variations by default).

I got read/write access working to a NTFS formatted VMDK with the following setup:

Mac OS 10.7.2 VMware Fusion 4.1 VMDK Mounter (taken from old VMware 3 install) Tuxera NTFS v2011.4.2 MacFUSE 2.2.1 (Tuxera version)

1. Double click the .vmdk. it will mount in read only mode.
2. open disk utility
3. unmount (not eject) then re-mount the volume

It should now be in read/write mode thanks to Tuxera NTFS. You can confirm this by the "Volumes mounted by Tuxera NTFS" list in the Tuxera NTFS system preference.