The VMDK file format is used for virtual machine (VM) disk image files. VMDK files contain a complete and independent virtual machine and are commonly used with VMware virtual appliances.

Programmatically, I'm not sure. But in Windows you can associate a drive letter to a disk number, then out in VMware you can associate a disk number to a VMDK filename.

I transferred the vmdk's to an external HD, and have been taking a look at them. I've tried vmware-vdiskmanager and vmware-mount to either repair or locally mount the filesystem, but nothing was ...