Understanding why a datastore became inaccessible is the first step in choosing the correct recovery path.
Commercial tools (safe, faster than manual): vmfs datastore recovery
Recovering a VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) datastore is a critical task often triggered by accidental deletion, metadata corruption, or storage hardware failure. The approach depends on whether you are trying to recover a deleted file within a healthy datastore or a completely missing datastore volume. 1. Identify the Failure Type Before attempting recovery, determine the root cause: Understanding why a datastore became inaccessible is the
These tools are the gold standard for "Mount & Extract." They read the raw data on the disk, bypassing the corrupted file system tables, and allow you to extract the .vmdk and .vmx files to a safe location. Known for a user-friendly interface for virtual drive
It focuses on the practical "How-To" and the crucial distinctions between different types of failure.
Known for a user-friendly interface for virtual drive extraction. Best Practices for Avoiding Datastore Failure