How to recover deleted vmdk - best way to proceed?

[digitalprovisio]

Hello Community,

In an afford to clean up some valuable disk space so I can create a backup of my vmdk file. I deleted two files, one of them I know was DP-SERVER.vmdk, based on the dates I thought it was okay. This appears to be the parent to the snapshots. I have not done anything else to the datastore, I found a tool called VMFS Recovery but for $700 seems a bit overpriced for what I need to do.

Does any one have any other suggestions? I also attached a copy of my logs.

Thank you.

Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/520d0b83-4b0db881-02ff-d89d6715dc58/Windows 2012/DP-SERVER-000001.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

The system cannot find the file specified

VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk "/vmfs/volumes/520d0b83-4b0db881-02ff-d89d6715dc58/Windows 2012/DP-SERVER.vmdk". Verify the path is valid and try again.

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community - You will have to either restore the virtual machine from a backup or pay fo rthe VMFS recovery tool or service -

[admin]

Hi ,

Is is Just the vmdk that is missing or the flat.vmdk as well.? If you SSH into the datastore do you see any flat files..?

Thanks,

Avinash

[digitalprovisio]

/vmfs/volumes/520d0b83-4b0db881-02ff-d89d6715dc58/Windows 2012 # ls

DP-SERVER-000001-delta.vmdk  vmmcores-13.gz

DP-SERVER-000001.vmdk        vmmcores-14.gz

DP-SERVER.nvram              vmware-21.log

DP-SERVER.vmsd               vmware-22.log

DP-SERVER.vmx                vmware-23.log

DP-SERVER.vmxf               vmware-24.log

vmmcores-10.gz               vmware-25.log

vmmcores-11.gz               vmware-26.log

vmmcores-12.gz               vmware.log

This is what I get when list the contents of that folder.

I know I am going to get a lot of heat for this but there is no recent enough back of this vmdk file. This was really a test environment that went live. Trust me, after this nightly backups sound great.

If I have to resort to a recovery tool are there are options out there?

[a_p_]

Send a PM to continuum. He's a data recovery specialist and may be able to help if the datastore hasn't been changed after the files were deleted.

Andr+e

[continuum]

Hi
in such a case first try to read the volume with vmfs-fuse from Linux.
Sometimes deleted vmdks are still visible.
If that fails Disk Internals VMFS Recovery will probably also fail - at least in my limited experience with that tool it never solved such a case.

If you used a thick provisioned vmdk and the datastore was not filled to 100 % I may be able to help :just  yesterday I had a similar case.
I had to recover a manually deleted 300 Gb vmdk - so I searched the raw volume for 300 Gb vmdks created by Windows 2003.
I found two - so I extracted them manually :  the first extracted was the wrong one - but the second one was the deleted one.

The procedure takes over the thumb 2 up to 6 hours for every Terrabyte of VMFS - depends on your hardware ... for the search.
When vmdks that match the search pattern : size and guestOS are found -  add more time for the actual extraction.

It helps when the size and guestOS are unusual: If you usually use Win2008 R2 for your VMs and size them all with 60 Gb ... and then deleted one of them manually my procedure will find all the 2k8R2 vmdks - not just the one you deleted.

Anyway - if the lost vmdk is valuable - call me via skype - "sanbarrow" - so that we can talk about it.
The procedure is time consuming - so it would be a good idea to start with it on friday afternoon ....

Ulli

[digitalprovisio]

Ulli, thank you for your response.

I have Ubuntu Live CD running and I installed vmfs-tools.

I mounted the system and I browsed the directory just like I did via SSH and i'm showing the same files.

I also believe I used thin provisioning for this vmdk, is there still hope? I am going to be around all day. if you happen to have a spare minute I'm also on Skype.

Thank you,
Ambrose

[continuum]

Hi
sorry - I cant help you with thin provisioned vmdks

[digitalprovisio]

Ahh, thank you for the reply. I've somewhat given up on the idea of recovering the whole VM. How about accessing files inside the VMDK files I still have?