VMFS Recovery
Our experts at VMFS Recovery include dedicated computer scientists who have mastered the intricacies of virtual machines. We don’t just understand how ESXi hypervisors and other VMware virtual machines work; we know what to do when they stop working. Our extensive knowledge of virtual machine architecture has enabled us to develop groundbreaking VMware data recovery software.
VMFS Recovery has provided professional and affordable data recovery services for over a decade. As part of our business model, we don’t charge any fees for our data recovery evaluations. We only charge for our data recovery efforts after we’ve successfully recovered your most important files! With our ISO-5 Class 100 cleanroom workstations and SOC 2 Type II audited, GSA-contracted facilities, you can rest easy knowing there’s no safer place for your data.
What’s Inside a Virtual Machine?
The heart of a virtual machine is a virtual hard disk drive, a simulation of a hard drive that resides on your server’s hard drive(s). It’s essentially a hard drive within a hard drive, containing all the metadata and filesystem blueprints of its parent hard drive. With the right tools, you can use a virtual hard drive just like any normal disk.
A virtual machine is a computer simulation of a computer. It contains its own operating system, while a hypervisor like VMware ESXi acts as a gatekeeper between your server’s components and the virtual OS. To the end user, there’s no discernible difference between a virtual machine and a physical machine.
How Your Data’s Disappearing Act Works
While a virtual hard drive has no physical points of failure, its fate is tied to its host machine. Physical failures, such as bad sectors on a hard drive, can damage the virtual machine. Logical failures, like boot sector or partition table corruption, can also render data inaccessible. Additionally, issues with the hypervisor, such as the "Purple Screen of Death" (PSOD) in VMware ESXi, can jeopardize your data.
The VMware Data Recovery Process
When clients come to us with virtual machines needing data recovery, those machines typically reside on NAS, SAN, or RAID servers that have crashed. Recovering data from these environments involves rebuilding the storage volumes, repairing any damaged hard drives, and then recovering the virtual machines and their files.
Our engineers at VMFS Recovery peel back layer after layer to reach your data, ensuring the best results possible from our recovery efforts. We mount the virtual machines on physical hard disks, examining them just like a hard disk from any normal computer. By cross-referencing status maps and carefully spot-testing files, we ensure optimal data recovery.
What is a VMDK?
A VMDK, or virtual machine disk, is a file format used by VMware products like ESXi. If you have corrupted, deleted, or reformatted VMDK files, or if you've deleted virtual disk files, the experts at VMFS Recovery can help. Check out our guides and tutorials for more information.
What is ESXi?
The hypervisor doles out access to your server’s hardware to your VMs as needed. To the end user, there’s no discernible difference between virtual machine and physical machine. The talented engineers at VMFS Recovery have experience performing VMDK recovery for ESXi hypervisors. If you are having problems with a virtual machine running ESXi, risk-free consultations are available at VMFS Recovery.
VMFS Recovery’s VMware Data Recovery Advantage
VMFS Recovery’s engineers use a proprietary data recovery platform, designed and constantly updated in-house. This platform allows us to use one tool throughout the entire data recovery process, ensuring complete control and precision. This approach helps us deliver the best results possible, unlike other labs that may need multiple tools and can lose track of the recovery process.