There is no more VMFS undelete in ESX 4

In ESX 4 apparently there is not possible to use vmfs-undelete utility. This cmd tools was in ESX 3/3.5 used to recover accidentaly deleted vmdk files, but as I saw on Duncan Epping’s blog recently, the tool is not present in vSphere 4 any more…

vmfs-undelete utility is not available for ESX/ESXi 4.0
ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 3 included a utility called vmfs-undelete, which could be used to recover deleted .vmdk files. This utility is not available with ESX/ESXi 4.0.

Workaround: None. Deleted .vmdk files cannot be recovered.

How it was possible to use vmfs-undelete tool before? :

01.) Log in to the service console and enter the vmfs-undelete command.
02.) Select option [b]. LIke this you can see all the VMs on your host.
03.) Then select [99] to back up a vmdk blocklist of all the virtual machines. The block list file is a plain text file that keeps a record of all VMDKs of the virtual machines.
04.) Only after, if you accidentally delete one vmdk file, you will be able to recover. Also,  if the whole VMFS datastore gets deleted or corrupted.

Well, it’s a shame that this tool is not available anymore, but with all the new features we now have in vSphere 4 I would not complain…. -:).

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Technorati Tags: ESX 3, undelete datastore ESX 3, undelete file ESX 4, undelete VMDK, vmfs-undelete

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