How to recover the formatted VMFS datastore in ESXi

[maxaraujo]

Hello team,

while upgrading Vsphere 5.5 to 6, erroneously selected the third option "Install ESXI, overwrite VMFS datastore" and the installation was completed along with two VMs, the problem is that we do not have backup and your local disk,
Is there any possibility to recover old Vm's, ..?

[daphnissov]

Possibly, but you'll want to consult with continuum​. What you need to do immediately is stop using that ESXi host/VMFS datastore. Do not write/change any data unless upon his instruction.

[maxaraujo]

thank you, After formatting, I no longer used the disc

[continuum]

Hello
If you provide a VMFS header dump I may be able to create dd scripts to extract your VMDKs.
See my instructions here:
Create a VMFS-Header-dump using an ESXi-Host in production | VM-Sickbay
Ulli

[mav1024]

Did you have success recovering the vmdks?

I did a similar thing "Install ESXI, overwrite VMFS datastore" Its on a 1TB drive which has the ESXi installed and datastores.

I thought the next option after selecting  "Install ESXI, overwrite VMFS datastore" would be to select which partition/datastore to overwrite but obviously that didn't happen.

I know the datastore is intact as I've run DiskInternals VMFS Recovery free trial and all VMs files and VMDKs are there and recoverable. I just can't afford to pay $1000 full license to recover them.

[continuum]

Every case is different  ....

Create a vmfs-header dump and contact me via skype.

Probably I can help

Ulli

[Devicron]

Dear Sirs! Please let me know if someone able to help me to recover remotely large *.tar.gz and backups of VMware virtual machines located on a single hdd which were stored directly under VMware's VMFS (not inside virtual machine). That disk was accidentally formatted and never used again after that. The local recovery specialists having PC-3000, UFS Explorer, RStudio, etc. could not help me unfortunately 😞