You can Access the Physical hard disk in VMware Virtual Machine by following methods mentioned here. But, this article explains how you can access the Virtual disk in Windows without VMWare software. This method works in Windows XP and later operating systems.
Normally VMWare Virtual disk is a single file with VMDK extension where ever you create a virtual machine. This file can be moved to other places and opened by windows and other versions on VMWare.
To open and edit the VMWare virtual disk in Windows follow the steps,
1) Locate the Virtual Disk file you want to open or edit in Windows.
2) Even though you are going to open the VMDK file in Windows, still VMWare should be installed on Windows. VMWare product automatically associates with vmdk files and help to open in Windows.
Right Click on the vmdk file and select ‘Map Virtual Disk’ first option.
3) VMware recommended opening the vmdk files in Read-only format to prevent any modification in the virtual disk which may cause booting or operating system issues on virtual machine. If you are sure about what you are doing, then remove the tick shown by arrow mark and open the drive with writing access. This method will help to modify some boot options, overwrite corrupted files and any other tasks you can do in virtual disk to boot the virtual machine.
4) The vmdk file will be mounted on windows explorer with specify drive name.
5) Any modification on this Z drive will be saved on the VMDK file.
