How To Recover Deleted Vmdk Esxi |top|

The first and most reliable method of recovery is not a recovery method at all, but a preventive measure: the use of VM snapshots. In VMware, a snapshot preserves the state of a virtual machine at a specific point in time. When a VMDK is deleted while a snapshot exists, the data is often not immediately purged from the datastore. Instead, the original VMDK may be retained as a snapshot delta file. If the deletion is noticed immediately, an administrator can browse the datastore, locate the snapshot manager, and revert the VM to its previous state. This highlights the critical importance of snapshot hygiene; taking snapshots before performing maintenance or storage migrations provides an immediate "undo button" that requires no specialized software or downtime.

Choose the specific .vmdk and restore it directly back to the original datastore. 5. Professional Data Recovery Software

Connect the physical storage (RAID or SAN) to a Linux machine. Install the tools: sudo apt-get install vmfs-tools how to recover deleted vmdk esxi

This is time-consuming and requires precise knowledge of block offsets and VMDK structure. It is generally not recommended unless you have no other options.

If you just accidentally deleted a virtual disk (VMDK) from an ESXi datastore, stop all disk activity immediately. Recovery is possible because ESXi often only deletes the "pointer" file while the actual data remains in a hidden flat file until overwritten. 🛠️ The "Pointer Recreation" Method The first and most reliable method of recovery

Do you have a available, or are we looking strictly at manual recovery from the datastore?

Use the vmkfstools command to create a temporary dummy disk with the exact same size. Instead, the original VMDK may be retained as

Sometimes a VMDK is not truly deleted but is no longer attached to a VM.

New data will overwrite the "empty" space where your deleted VMDK lives.

Excellent for scanning RAID arrays and VMFS partitions to find deleted inodes.

: The large binary file containing the actual data.