title: VMWare-Mount not recognizing virtual disks
body: <p>I have two disks as <code>.vmdk</code> files, and four as <code>.vdi</code> files. I can boot virtual machines on them with Sun xMV VirtualBox, and they work just fine. However, I want to mount them on my local computer so I can read some files off of them without starting a virtual machine. I downloaded the <code>vmware-mount</code> utility, but I get this error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Unable to mount the virtual disk. The disk may be in use by a virtual
  machine, may not have enough volumes or mounted under another drive
  letter. If not, verify that the file is a valid virtual disk file.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Thinking it's a problem with the utility, I downloaded the SDK and made my own simple program in C to try to mount a disk. It just initializes the API, connects to it, then attempts to open the disk. I get this error, once again claiming it is not a virtual disk:</p>
  
  <pre><code>**LOG: DISKLIB-DSCPTR: descriptor above max size: I64u
  **LOG: DISKLIB-LINK  : "f:\programming\VMs\windowstrash.vdi" : failed to open (The file specified is not a virtual disk).
  **LOG: DISKLIB-CHAIN : "f:\programming\VMs\windowstrash.vdi" : failed to open (The file specified is not a virtual disk).
  **LOG: DISKLIB-LIB   : Failed to open 'f:\programming\VMs\windowstrash.vdi' with flags 0x1e (The file specified is not a virtual disk).
  ** FAILURE ** : The file specified is not a virtual disk
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The files are clearly virtual disks, though, since I can actually mount and use them with a virtual machine. I tried detaching them from any VMs and trying again, but I got the same results. </p>
  
  <p>Any ideas? Maybe the "descriptor above max size" is a hint?</p>