VM lost/deleted only flat-vmdk and said is not virtual disk. How to recover?

[lcb81]

Hello all.

Thanks in advance for any help.

We have esxi 6.0 running in our company and one VM has a problem.

I was checking in the datastore browser and the only file there is the flat vmdk file.

I tryed to recover using some links:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1002511

And another link (I lost this one) that is telling to dump 4 files of the esxi, but I got "short write" error in the second file.

Could someone help me to solve this problem? Thank you!

[a_p_]

What exactly did you do so far?

Please post a file listing (ls -lisa) of the VM's files, and attach your newly create .vmdk descriptor file, as well as the VM's configuration (.vmx) file to your net reply.

André

[lcb81]

Hello André, thanks for fast reply!

I copied the VMDK file to my computer, to try to recover. As the only file is this flat-vmdk, I prefer to work in a copy.

In this copy I am trying to recover using a software from Stellar. Please check below the output for ls -lisa command:

[root@localhost:/vmfs/volumes/59012a94-bf8addf0-eab7-d4ae528b5a90/Ubuntu - Samba] ls -lisa
total 1048577032
306208900 8 drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 560 Mar 27 15:17 .
4 1024 drwxr-xr-t 1 root root 2100 Mar 27 14:21 ..
314597508 1048576000 -rw------- 1 root root 1073741824000 Mar 24 11:37 Ubuntu - Samba-flat.vmdk
629170308 0 -rw------- 1 root root 493 Mar 27 13:45 Ubuntu - Samba.vmdk

Attached you can check the file that I've created using the tutorial from VMWare.

Thank you!

[scott28tt]

No VM backup then…?

[lcb81]

Unfortunately not.

I am not the IT guy of the company. I checked the backup external HD and it is empty! 😭

[a_p_]

The recreated descriptor file look s ok.

>>> that is telling to dump 4 files of the esxi, but I got "short write" error in the second file.

Can you please share more details about this? Where and in which task do you see this error? What is the "second" file?

André

[lcb81]

Hi André.

Sorry for not provide more details before. I found in this forum this tutorial:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-vSphere-Documents/Create-a-VMFS-Header-dump-using-an-ESXi-H...

I used Case B and Case C, without sucess. In case C, I can dump one file (count=500 skip=0). When I try the second file (count=500 skip=500) I got the error "short write".

[continuum]

I am the author of the linked document.
Short write error message means that you are trying to use gzip but dont have the space to write the file.
Sounds like you dump to /tmp but do not delete the files that you already dumped ???
Cant you dump to second / healthy datastore ?
If necessary call me via skype - if you dont want to - dont waste time with creating the dumps.

Ulli

[lcb81]

Hello, thanks for your support.

I will call you in Skype.

I deleted the dump before make another.

I will explain better in skype and feedback here.

[lcb81]

Just to update.

Unfortunately we did not recover the file.

As our backup HDD was with problem too, we used UFS Explorer and recovered data from backup HDD. The VMDK file is lost.

Thanks for all support!