Do mount the VMFS volume on a Windows or Linux machine. Standard OS partition managers will not recognize VMFS and may attempt to "fix" the partition table, destroying your data. You must scan the raw disk image.
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/backup_lun/vmfs_image.dd bs=4M status=progress recover deleted vmdk file from vmfs datastore
A more promising native approach: . Run: Do mount the VMFS volume on a Windows or Linux machine
This method uses a hidden utility in the ESXi Shell called vmkfstools . Note that the specific recovery command is undocumented and can vary between ESXi versions. recovery fails if:
Popular tools:
Even with best tools, recovery fails if: