Accidentally deleting a virtual machine disk (VMDK) is a nightmare scenario for any VMware administrator. Whether it was a mis-click in the vSphere Client, a storage migration gone wrong, or a script executed with the wrong parameters, the realization that a critical virtual disk has vanished can be panic-inducing.
vmkfstools -R naa.XXXX
If you are proceeding with self-recovery, this guide outlines the mechanisms of VMFS deletion and the methods to recover your data. recover deleted vmdk file from vmfs datastore
The actual disk content remains on the LUN until overwritten by new writes. This is the classic “unlink but not wipe” behavior common to many file systems, but with critical VMFS-specific nuances. Accidentally deleting a virtual machine disk (VMDK) is
find /vmfs/volumes/[DatastoreName] -name "*-delta.vmdk" -o -name "*-flat.vmdk" The actual disk content remains on the LUN
Accidentally deleting a virtual disk is a critical event, but you can often if you act immediately to prevent data overwriting.