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"Yes," Elena said. "But the server will be back online in 30 minutes."

But then she checked the VM settings. There were no snapshots.

Example descriptor (40GB):

Elena had Mark create a new VM with the exact same name and hardware specs. "This won't bring the data back," she explained, "but it prepares the container. Since we don't have the flat file, and standard ESXi doesn't have a native 'undelete' command for VMFS, we are going to restore last night's backup."

all other virtual machines running on that specific volume to prevent them from writing new data that might overwrite the "deleted" blocks.

He connected to the ESXi host via the Host Client, navigated to the datastore browser, and saw a folder named Win2k12-Temp . It looked exactly like the junk data they had agreed to delete weeks ago. He selected the files— Win2k12-Temp.vmdk and Win2k12-Temp-flat.vmdk —and hit .

She pulled up a terminal, connected to the ESXi host via SSH, and began the recovery process.

: Specialized tools can scan the VMFS partition at the block level to find deleted entries. Highly-rated options include:

This story highlights the critical nature of VMDK recovery. If you find yourself in Mark's shoes, here is the actual technical workflow you should follow.

Actually, realizing the complexity and risk of raw block recovery, Elena opted for the (often the most reliable 'story' solution for this prompt):

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