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Zynal
Contributor
Contributor

EXSI 6.5 Missing VMDK

Having a very bad start of the day.

We were making a few changing to our existing VM's and accidentally seem to have deleted 😧 Drive vmdk for one of our servers.

I am looking at the datastore where D drive was located and it seems to be empty. Is there anyway i can have this vmdk recovered?

I have been going through a couple of forums and found this discussion on here where a user was able to get his files recovered without any active backup. Any help is greatly appreciated.

How to Recover a deleted folder and .vmdk file

Thanks

6 Replies
continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Read Create a VMFS-Header-dump using an ESXi-Host in production | VM-Sickbay

Create a dump like that.

Call me via skype and give me a download for the dump.

Ulli


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Dump received and usable.

Bad news - looks like I cant help in your case.

I only see one empty directory NANSIVMFP1  and eventually one 72GB file.

No descriptor-vmdks or any named references.

Sorry


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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naveensuresh
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

If we are aware. We have two types of vmdks,

1. vm name.vmdk - descriptor file which will describe where the actual resides.

2. Flat.vmdk where the actual data resides.

I am sure, you could still see the flat.vmdk if you ssh to esxi host and browse to the vm path ? If flat.vmdk exists, then we can recreate the descriptor file (.vmdk).

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

continuum
Immortal
Immortal

@
Please do not recommend that KB-entry.
It often makes matters worse in recovery cases.

To recreate a missing descriptorfile folks should use a sample descriptorfile and edit the variables.

Creating a regular vmdk just to delete the flat.vmdk again is contra productive in many cases.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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naveensuresh
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I got you. Thanks for informing this.

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Zynal
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for trying mate. Guess there is no way to have this recovered then.

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