Recover — Deleted Vmdk File From Vmfs Datastore

Recovering a deleted VMDK from VMFS is a forensic exercise, not a simple "restore from recycle bin" operation. It requires identifying the raw blocks on the physical disk and carving them out before they are overwritten by the active virtual machines. While vmkfstools -R offers a glimmer of hope for instant recovery, file carving remains the standard methodology for truly lost files.

Recovery is never guaranteed. The architecture of VMFS is designed for performance, which means deleted data is aggressively cleared to free up IOPS. recover deleted vmdk file from vmfs datastore

Before we dive into the recovery process, let's quickly understand what VMFS and VMDK are. Recovering a deleted VMDK from VMFS is a

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/backup_lun/vmfs_image.dd bs=4M status=progress recover deleted vmdk file from vmfs datastore