Moving a Linked Clone's Base Virtual Machine in VMware
If you are using the linked clone feature in VMware (and you should be), then you might be annoyed that you can't move the base virtual machine around without breaking all of the linked clones.
The error you'll get will be similar to this: " cannot open the disk D:\Ubuntu\Ubuntu.vmdk or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: failed to lock the file."
To fix this problem, open up the *.vmx file in your linked clone's directory, and find the following line:
fileSearchPath = ".;D:\VMware\UbuntuBaseVM"
The path there will reflect the old location of the linked clone's base machine. Just update it to the new directory, and you are once again in business.
Disclaimer: Many of our articles require making changes to your system. While we fully test and stand by our advice, there is still the potential for problems when making any configuration changes. Please be careful.
I moved the (machineName).vmdk.lck to the parent directory and was able to load successfully. I think you can just delete the (machineName).vmdk.lck completely