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fireskyer
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Restore VMDK without an Flate File ?

ESXI 5.5

HP DL 380 G5

Hello everyone

We made an Backup from an VM with the Vsphere Browser ( Download Folder)

Unfrounately in the Backed Up Folder there is no Flat File.

I tried to Mount the vmdk's but it seems that the Partions in the vmdk are Lost. ( i've use OFS-Mount)

So .. 2 Questions:

  • 1. Could i restore an vmdk (chain) without an Flat File ?

if not ...

  • 2.  Could i mount an vmdk File with lost partitions in it ?

best regards fireskyer

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

The Basic file type used by VMDK files are SPARSE and FLAT as a Virtual Machine Hard Disk file while creating a VMDK file. But if you have corrupt VMDK file and don't now the file type, No worries you can restore VMDK without the FLAT file.  Use the [Moderator edit: Removed spam link] which helps you in recovering your maximum possible data. Select the VMDK descriptor file from your system directory, before the scanning process.

I hope this would be helpful.

Regards.

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

> Could i restore an vmdk (chain) without an Flat File ?
It depends. You can not restore a vmdk if the flat.vmdk is lost and you have no snapshots. It is sometimes possible to restore a vmdk if you have snapshots that arer very old and very large - so that the priginal data in the basedisk has been overwritten ny the new data inside the snapshots.

> Could i mount an vmdk File with lost partitions in it ?
Sometimes the partitiontable gets lost and can be recreated with a tool named Testdisk.
This is only possible if the flat.vmdk is available.


________________________________________________
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

> No worries you can restore VMDK without the FLAT file.  Use the [Moderator edit: Removed spam link] which helps you in recovering your maximum possible data.
The tool you are advertising may be useful for the Workstation platform. It is not able to help for ESXi.


________________________________________________
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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