VMFS is a clustered, journaled file system designed for high-performance block storage. Unlike traditional file systems (NTFS, ext4), VMFS uses distributed locking, atomic updates, and a specialized metadata structure. A VMDK file, typically stored in a VM’s directory alongside .vmx and .vmsd files, is composed of extents (up to 256 per file) and referenced by file descriptors in the VMFS file system.
Conclusion: Native ESXi commands alone cannot recover a deleted VMDK’s data blocks. recover deleted vmdk file from vmfs datastore
Accidentally deleting a virtual machine disk (VMDK) is a nightmare scenario for any VMware administrator. Whether it was a mis-click in the vSphere Client, a storage migration gone wrong, or a script executed with the wrong parameters, the realization that a critical virtual disk has vanished can be panic-inducing. VMFS is a clustered, journaled file system designed
If you see a flat file but no descriptor file, you can recreate the descriptor using vmkfstools -d thin -c [Size] [Filename].vmdk and associating it with the existing flat file, but this is a manual reconstruction, not a recovery of a truly deleted file. Conclusion: Native ESXi commands alone cannot recover a