Restore Vmware Flat Vmdk [better] -

Data loss can occur due to various reasons, including:

To minimize the risk of data loss and ensure successful restoration:

RW 4194304 VMFS "your-disk-flat.vmdk"

A VMware Flat VMDK is a single file that contains the entire virtual disk, including the VM's operating system, applications, and data. The flat VMDK file is a monolithic file that is stored on a datastore, which can be a SAN, NAS, or local storage device.

This creates new-disk.vmdk (descriptor) linking to the flat file.

You can create a new dummy VM and replace its disk, or manually create the descriptor.