Not necessarily. In many cases, a deleted VMFS partition is not destroyed—it’s simply hidden . Here is your technical guide to walking back from the edge of disaster. First, understand what happens when you delete a partition. Tools like fdisk , parted , or Windows DiskPart do not erase your data. They erase the partition table entry —a small, 128-byte (or less) record that tells the operating system where the partition starts, where it ends, and what type of file system it holds (e.g., 0xFB for VMFS).
dd if=/dev/sdX of=/safe_storage/vmfs_backup.img bs=1M status=progress Why? Because partition table recovery is low-risk, but one wrong command could compound the disaster. Working on an image file allows unlimited trial and error. VMFS volumes have distinct superblock signatures. Modern VMware versions (VMFS3, VMFS5, VMFS6) leave telltale markers. recover deleted vmfs partition
Have a VMFS recovery war story? Share it in the comments below. Not necessarily
esxcli storage core adapter rescan --all If the partition reappears but shows as "Not a valid VMFS volume," check the partition ID. ESXi requires the partition type to be 0xFB . Use fdisk -l from the ESXi shell (if you have it enabled) to verify. First, understand what happens when you delete a partition
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But let this be a lesson: in the datacenter, the most dangerous button is the one marked "Delete." Know your tools, test your recovery process, and always, always double-check your target.