If you have a VMDK file that hosts one or more VM partitions, here are 4 ways to get it mounted in Windows as a disk drive.
Windows Explorer
Supporting VMDK seems to be a feature built right into the Windows system. If you are using a system that runs Windows 7 or above, you may be able to map the image file right through Windows Explorer.
Navigate to the fold that hosts VMDK file in Windows Explorer, right-click the file and choose Map Virtual Disk.
Select the drive letter you want to map to, and click OK button on the Map Virtual Disk window.
To disconnect, right-click the mapped drive and choose Disconnect Virtual Disk.
It works beautifully when it works. When it’s not, it’s time to seek alternative options.
VMware Workstation
VMware Workstation is VMware’s desktop solution for virtualization. It has the “Map Virtual Disks” feature built in that opens VMDK in a wider format. If the method of using Windows Explorer doesn’t work out, VMware Workstation is next one in the line to try.
Go to File menu and select Map Virtual Disks… from the drop-down list to start the process.
vSphere Disk Development Kit
The “VMware-mount” command line is the one you can use to mount a VMDK disk without a GUI interface. The tool is part of the vSphere Disk Development Kit, so you need to download and install the kit to use the tool.
To mount a VMDK file (saved at C:\temp) in read-only mode use the following command:
vmware-mount.exe X: “C:\Temp\TestVM.vmdk”
If the VMDK file contains more than one partition you can use the parameter /v:x to mount the other volumes:
vmware-mount.exe /v:2 X: “C:\Temp\TestVM.vmdk”
If you need a writeable access, just use the parameter “/m:w“. This is extremely helpful if you need to replace a broken system file.
vmware-mount.exe /m:w X: “C:\Temp\TestVM.vmdk”
If you want to list all the mounted virtual drives use /L:
vmware-mount.exe /L
The command line is easy to use and powerful, but I am finding it’s not so easy to get the Development Kit installed on my computer for some reason.
OSFMount
OSFMount is a 3rd party free image mounting tool that mounts not only ISO format images but also VMDK files in Windows with a drive letter. It works on pretty much all versions of Windows.
It’s fairly easy to use the tool. Click the Mount new… button at the bottom of the window and follow the instructions.
If you have other alternative options, feel free to share. It’s never enough to have a reliable tool that does the job well in hand.
/Update on July 8, 2020/
As some of the commenters pointed out, the open-source archiving tool 7-Zip does happen to be the easiest way to open the VMDK file for you. By all means, give 7-Zip a try first and if it failed, try something mentioned above.
Actually you mention 3 options. The first one right out of explorer is only available if you have VMware workstation installed on you system. Check the icons used for mapping the drive. It uses the same tool.
Yes… at first I was skeptic…
but it is as you say…
VMDK image support is not/will not ever be in windows since VMDK was developed by same devs as VMware, Microsoft only supports major formats mainly developed by them. That was most like 3rd party software that may have been forgotten to be installed.
7zip Opens it. Have not tried to edit but if you just need to look at what is on the drive 7zip works
Wow, it really works. I could open the vmdk with 3 partitions which I could not in VMWare Player, and extracted the files I needed! Thanks for the info!
Thanx for the tip…
Still works in 2018, thank you Ron
Awesome tip – works in 2020, to retrieve content from a years old VMWare disk on a machine that couldn’t run the new VMWare Workstation 15. Life saver and really, really easy (7-Zip, Open Archive, shows the three partitions, open ‘ntfs.1’ and there is the entire file system).
Still works in 2023
From Iran
Thanks so much for this article. It got me out of a gigantic fix. Bless you.
The OSFMount got me out of a bind. No matter what I tried I couldn’t get any of my VMware Workstation 15.5 vmdk files to mount in Win10. The earlier version (VM Workstation 10, 12) vmdk files would. But not the 15.5 ones.
Thank you very much!
If you are just looking to move a few files in/out of a VMDK 7zip opens VMDK files as archives and allows normal file copy/paste etc.
7zip seems to open only the first partition on a vmdk disk
7Zip did open the VMDK disk file and the IMG partition file. It was perfect.
This is super helpful! I’ve had VMDK files give me headaches before. I usually just try to find the right software, but it’s nice to have these options laid out. I was looking into how to handle virtual disk images recently, and found some interesting stuff on Flying Car AI too. Thanks for sharing!
I’ve struggled with mounting VMDKs so many times, especially when Windows Explorer decides to act up. I actually prefer using 7-Zip for quick access, but it’s great to see these command-line alternatives compiled here. I remember discussing some virtualization quirks over at <a href="https://CrazyCattle3D.
I’ve run into this exact problem before when trying to recover files from an old VM. Honestly, 7-Zip ended up being my go-to since it’s already installed on most of my machines. I remember discussing similar file extraction headaches on remove music from video a while back, and the takeaway was always the same: try the simplest tool first.
Useful rundown. Worth adding that the Explorer map-virtual-disk route only shows up on some editions and builds, and it often refuses VMDK files with snapshots or descriptors pointing at split extents, which is where most people give up. For those, converting to VHD and attaching it through diskpart, or just browsing read-only with 7-Zip, is usually faster than fighting the mount. A note on write access would help too: mount read-only by default, because Windows writing NTFS metadata into a Linux image is how you corrupt it. I work on a video prompt generator that turns reference clips into structured prompts, and screenshots of each step would help readers more than text here. Thanks for the clear steps.
The built-in Windows route surprised me too — I’d spent an afternoon on third-party mounter trials for an old VM backup before realizing Explorer could just do it. The fallback options are worth keeping in a bookmark, since the disk management path is the one that usually saves me when the quick way stalls.
What actually ate my evening was duller: a signed consent form for my kid’s school trip that had to go back as a PDF, plus a photo of my ID for the same portal. I shot both on my phone, squared up the skewed edges, and ran them through lensup.ai to get clean printable pages — the compression aims at the size you pick and can land a bit over, so I left a little headroom and it went through. Files never get uploaded; it all happens in the browser tab, which is the main reason I bothered on a shared laptop.
The Windows Explorer “Map Virtual Disk” trick is genuinely useful when it works, and the fallback to VMware Workstation’s Map Virtual Disks is a sensible next step before reaching for the command-line VMware-mount tool. For anyone wanting to summarize a walkthrough like this, a tool such as topview t1 could turn the key steps into a short clip of up to 30s.
I’ve actually run into this exact issue before when trying to recover files from an old VM backup. The Windows Explorer method worked for me once but failed the second time, which was frustrating. I ended up poking around outstanding tiny desk ai and eventually just used 7-Zip since it was already installed.