Recover Virtual Machine From Flat Vmdk 〈99% DIRECT〉

Critical: The extent size must match the flat file size in sectors. Compute:

The descriptor points to the flat file. Without it, VMware has no way to interpret the raw data. Check the file size. A flat VMDK should be exactly the provisioned size of the disk (e.g., 40 GB). Use the datastore browser or command line: recover virtual machine from flat vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile version=1 CID=12345678 parentCID=ffffffff createType="vmfs" RW 83886080 VMFS "recovered-flat.vmdk" The Disk Data Base ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic" ddb.geometry.cylinders = "5221" ddb.geometry.heads = "255" ddb.geometry.sectors = "63" ddb.longContentID = "abcdef1234567890" ddb.thinProvisioned = "1" ddb.virtualHWVersion = "13" Critical: The extent size must match the flat

ls -lh /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/YourVM/ Look for *-flat.vmdk . If it exists but the small .vmdk is missing or zero bytes, recovery is possible. You have three reliable methods. Method A: Use vmkfstools (ESXi command line) This is the safest and fastest method. Check the file size