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Contributor
Contributor

ESX 3.5i Virtual Disk Deletion

I made a huge mistake and clicked on the wrong server instance and deleted the virtual disk. I immediately realized my mistake but need to know if it is possible to recover that virtual disk. i do not have a current backup of this virutal disk. i am running ESX3.5i.

Any help would be much appreciated.

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5 Replies
wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Welcome to the VMware forums!

You probably should call VMware support.

ESX3.5U3 (not the ESX3.5i version) has added preliminary undelete features.

See the release notes:

http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_esx35u3_rel_notes.html

  • Experimental Support for the VMDK Recovery Tool — This release adds support for the VMDK Recovery tool, a script intended to help customers to recover VMFS and VMDK datastores from accidental deletion of a datastore or physical disk corruption. For more information, see VMDK Recovery Tool (ESX 3.5 Update 3) (KB 1007243).

So maybe install a ESX3.5 full blown host, use the "enable resignature" trick to connect to your existing LUN and pray that the undelete script works?



--

Wil

_____________________________________________________

Visit the new VMware developers wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. There is no undelete applications like you can find for Windows for example, so your best bet would be to call VMware support and ask for a recovery specialist.

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You would have had to run the utility to create a restore file before you can use it to undelete a file.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hmmm... if it wasn't obvious that I haven't used the script...

For this tool to work, you must keep a current block list of your virtual machines. You cannot recover VMDK files for which you do not have a block list.

Sounds like something must be built into the VMFS filesystem or added to a cron job for this to be truly a useful script...

Sorry for the dead horse.. maybe call vmware support then?



--

Wil

_____________________________________________________

Visit the new VMware developers wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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wila
Immortal
Immortal

You would have had to run the utility to create a restore file before you can use it to undelete a file.

:smileygrin: Thanks Dave.. yep I just came to that same conclusion when I started to read the link that I added to my reply 😉

--

Wil

_____________________________________________________

Visit the new VMware developers wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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