How To Recover Files From VMware Disk For Free?

Have you lost important data from your VMware environment? If so, you’re not alone. Many users face challenges when their VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) files become corrupted. In this article, we will outline effective methods to recover files from VMware disks, including both manual techniques and professional solutions that can help restore your data efficiently.

What is VMware Virtual Machine?

VMware Virtual Machine is a hypervisor that enables you to use multiple Operating systems on the same physical device. With the help of the virtual machine, you will get the features of multiple OSs on the same device. It simplifies different tools that run on different environments. You will require to create a separate partition to use virtual machines on your system.

The VMware Virtual Machine saves its data locally as a VMDK file. It stores all the information related to Virtual machines. Sometimes, the VMDK file gets corrupted and you become unable to access your data. Let us check, what are the main reasons for VMDK file corruption.

Why Does a VMware Disk Get Corrupted?

VMware VMDK files can get corrupted/damaged due to many reasons. Before learning how to recover files from VMware disk, we discuss some of the core reasons responsible for Virtual Machine file corruption.

If the drive containing the Virtual disk files is infected, your VMDK file also gets corrupted.
The abrupt shutdown of the system is one of the major causes of file corruption. It can also damage your VMware files.
When you accidentally delete some files related to your Virtual Machine, it may cause corruption of the VMDK file.
Hardware failure causes corruption of Virtual machine files.
The intrusion of malicious programs into your system harms your data. It is another prominent reason for VMware disk corruption.

Now, let us check how to repair damaged VMDK files and restore VMware data.

How to Recover Files from VMware Disk for Free

If your VMware VMDK file has been corrupted, you can restore your data from its backup. A backup file helps you to recover files from VMDK disk in case of accidental data loss. This approach to restoring your data is easy and effective. Furthermore, you can restore the file to any previous version.

Follow the below steps to recover lost VMware data.

Click on the Windows button and search for the Control Panel option.
Now, click on the System and Security option and choose the File History option.
After that, click on the Restore Personal Files option.
Go to the location where you saved the Virtual Disk Image.
Choose the older version of that folder and hit the Restore button.

By performing this procedure, you can easily restore the Virtual Machine disk image. It is a free manual method to recover lost data. It is quite effective yet most people refrain from choosing this manual approach for data recovery.

Why Manual Approach is Not Reliable?

While manual methods for recovering lost virtual disk data are available, they come with several challenges and limitations:

Complexity: Manual recovery processes often require a deep understanding of system configurations and command-line operations. Users without technical expertise may find these procedures daunting and difficult to execute correctly.
Risk of Data Loss: Incorrectly performing manual recovery steps can lead to further data corruption or permanent loss. For instance, restoring an incorrect version of a VMDK file might overwrite crucial data, making it irretrievable.
Time-Consuming: Manual recovery can be a lengthy process, especially when dealing with large volumes of data. Identifying the correct backup versions, ensuring compatibility, and performing the restoration can take considerable time.
No Guarantee of Success: Even after investing time and effort, manual methods do not ensure complete data recovery. Factors like the extent of corruption, availability of backups, and system configurations can affect the outcome.
Potential for Human Error: The manual approach is susceptible to mistakes, such as selecting the wrong files or misconfiguring settings during the recovery process, which can exacerbate data loss issues.

You might be thinking, if the manual methods are not reliable to recover files from VMware disk, what else should I choose?

The answer is a professional third-party tool. It is an authentic and secure approach for all VMware users to restore their data to its original state.

Read also – How to Recover Corrupt VHD files?

Professional Solution to Recover data from VMware Disk

VMDK Recovery Tool is an advanced solution to recover maximum data from corrupted/damaged VMware VMDK files. It has numerous advanced functionalities that enable you to restore specific data from a complete VMDK file. With this utility, you can easily repair damaged virtual disk files in a few simple steps. Moreover, it is supported with all major versions of Windows OS.

Feature of the VMWare Recovery Tool

Repair heavily corrupted VMDK files and restore maximum data efficiently.
Recover data from both fixed and dynamic disk images.
Support different file systems: NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, RAW, etc.
Multiple file recovery modes to repair severely corrupted VMDK files.
Support both MBR and GPT partition tables for complete data recovery.
Effective for recovering VMDK files created by VMware or Virtualbox.

How to Recover Data from VMware Disk

Download and install the VMDK Recovery Tool. Run it as administrator.
Click on the Browse button and choose the desired VMDK file. Press Next.

After that, save the disk image and select scanning mode. Hit the Next button.
Now, choose the Disk Volume and other options. Click on the Next button.

Select the file recovery mode as per the VMDK file corruption. Press Next.

You will see the recovered data. Select the required items and click Save.
Choose the destination for the recovered file and press OK to save.

Conclusion

We hope you have learned how to recover files from VMware Disk manually and professionally. The manual approach provided here is easy but might not restore maximum data. Also, it is appropriate for minor corruption. Therefore, we recommended the advanced VMDK recovery tool that can repair the heavily corrupted VMware file and restore maximum data. Moreover, it offers various options to simplify the data recovery process.