'VMware Server cannot find the virtual disk' on VMware Server

Summary

When starting the VM on Blade 5, the following error appears: VMware Server cannot find the virtual disk "//disk3.vmdk". Please verify the path is valid and try again. Cannot open the disk '//disk3.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: The system cannot find the file specified. You may find that the your file equivalent of "disk3.vmdk" may not be found. However, other files may be found: -r--r--r-- 1 root root 11 Dec 21 16:38 disk3.vmdk.RESLCK.WRITELOCK -rw------- 1 oracle dba 4096 Sep 25 17:52 disk3.vmdk.RESLCK -rw------- 1 oracle dba 437 Dec 12 13:41 disk4.vmdk -rw------- 1 oracle dba 437 Dec 12 13:41 disk5.vmdk -rw------- 1 oracle dba 437 Dec 12 13:41 disk6.vmdk -rw------- 1 oracle dba 434 Dec 12 13:34 disk7.vmdk -rw------- 1 oracle dba 434 Dec 12 13:37 disk8.vmdk Deleting the disk3.vmdk.RESLCK.WRITELOCK file did not make a difference.

Details

1. Manually create the //disk3.vmdk file (copy any of the other ones, e.g. disk5.vmdk), and change the following two values: CID=0187ef8f <-- this should be a random number RW 20971520 FLAT "/dev/sdh" 0 <-- change this to /dev/sdh or equivalent to your environment Explanation why I used "0187ef8f": Per http://sanbarrow.com/vmdk/vmdk-basic-CID-chain-repair.html, CID was a number randomly assigned by VMware Server. I figured, why not use a random CID (I just used the one in the website), after confirming that it's not in any of the .vmdk files. Explanation why I used /dev/sdh: All the other .vmdk files were already pointing to various files under /dev: disk4.vmdk: RW 20971520 FLAT "/dev/sdi" 0 disk5.vmdk: RW 20971520 FLAT "/dev/sdj" 0 disk6.vmdk: RW 20971520 FLAT "/dev/sdk" 0 disk7.vmdk: RW 2097152 FLAT "/dev/sdl" 0 disk8.vmdk: RW 2097152 FLAT "/dev/sdm" 0 So that leaves the only available ones: /dev/sdg /dev/sdh Since lun33.vmdk was the first file, I chose to use /dev/sdh which was the one immediately preceding /dev/sdi and used by lun34.vmdk. This was a risk, but what choice did I have? 2. The VM server started up!!!