The moment you delete a VMDK, the blocks it occupied are marked as "free." If the ESXi host needs to write new data—whether it's a snapshot, a log file, or a new VM—it will happily overwrite those blocks. Once overwritten, your data is gone forever.
Do not attempt to run these tools inside the ESXi shell. ESXi is a hardened hypervisor; it lacks the FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) modules required. You need a separate Linux rescue machine (Ubuntu or a Live CD works best). vmfs undelete esxi 5
This attempts to list directory entries. Occasionally, you might see a file listed with a weird name (like 00123456-abcdef.vmdk ). If you see a file size that matches your lost VM, you can try renaming it back to its original name. The moment you delete a VMDK, the blocks
VMFS Undelete on ESXi 5: Complete Data Recovery Guide Accidental deletion of a Virtual Machine (VM) or its virtual disk ( .vmdk ) file on a can immediately disrupt business operations. Because ESXi uses the proprietary Virtual Machine File System version 5 (VMFS5) , traditional Windows or Linux recovery utilities cannot natively read the partition. ESXi is a hardened hypervisor; it lacks the
Spin up a small Linux VM (Ubuntu is recommended) on a different datastore or a completely different host. You will need to install the vmfs tools.