How to change a VM from split across multiple .vmdk files to a single one or two?

Solution 1:

The best way to join split vmdk's is via the vmware-vdiskmanager utility. For example,

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r first-of-many.vmdk -t 0 Merged.vmdk

-r specifies the target disk, -t specifies the kind of disk that will be created.

In this case, 0 creates a grow-able disk in a single file. This command should leave the original split vmdk's in place, so that you can verify everything is functioning properly with the newly created disk.

See http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VirtualDiskManager.pdf for documentation.

The vmdk's themselves do not represent individual partitions. If you're looking to have a separate vmdk for the OS swap space and storage, you need to create them on separate virtual disks. In other words, swap space has a 1GB virtual hard drive to itself.