Open Disk Management ( diskmgmt.msc ). Look for the newly attached drive. It should show a partition, but without a drive letter or file system type. Do not initialize, format, or convert the disk if Windows prompts you to do so.
DiskInternals VMFS Recovery is a dedicated commercial utility designed specifically to read, mount, and recover files from VMware VMFS partitions (including VMFS 5 and VMFS 6) within a Windows environment.
Select and point it to the connected VMFS drive. Boot the Linux VM. Install the VMFS driver package via terminal: sudo apt-get install vmfs-tools Use code with caution. Create a mount point and mount the drive: sudo vmfs-fuse /dev/sdb1 /mnt/vmfs Use code with caution.
VMware’s Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) is a clustered, high-performance file system designed for block storage. VMFS 6 introduced:
: Uses an NTFS scan option to identify files within VMFS partitions if the host server is damaged. Method 3: Secondary ESXi Host (Safest for Data) mount vmfs 6 windows hot
Do not attempt to use third-party partition managers to force-assign a Windows drive letter to the raw partition.
Conclusion and recommended approach
If you do not want to use third-party recovery software directly on the raw disk, you can use a Linux intermediary. Linux has open-source, read-only tools for VMFS (like vmfs-tools , though VMFS 6 support varies).
You can browse all VM folders, copy .vmdk , .vmx , and .vswp files to a healthy NTFS drive. Open Disk Management ( diskmgmt
The disk must be visible in Windows Disk Management as a raw partition. Do not initialize or format the disk if prompted by Windows.
In the world of enterprise virtualization, VMware’s VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) is the gold standard for storing virtual disks, snapshots, and configuration files. With the introduction of VMFS 6 (released alongside vSphere 6.5 and later), VMware brought improvements like automatic space reclamation and support for larger block sizes. However, one persistent challenge remains for Windows administrators:
How to Mount & Read a VMFS 6 Datastore on Windows (The Hot Way)
What or behavior are you seeing in Windows Disk Management? Do not initialize, format, or convert the disk
: Ensure any third-party tool you use is configured to read-only mode to prevent Windows from overwriting critical VMware partition headers.
Production environments requiring zero software installation Destructive Extremely High DO NOT USE (Destroys VMFS 6 data)
Connect the VMFS6-formatted storage (e.g., an iSCSI LUN) to your Windows server.
