Data Recovery from Virtual Machines (VMs) and Servers

Recovering data from Virtual Machines (VMs)

Information: A Virtual Machine (or VM) is a software implementation of a physical machine. It's possible to have many VMs running on one machine - this is often a server, although we have also seen VMs implemented on standalone desktop and laptop hard disk drives.

Examples: VMware, Xen, Virtual Box, Parallels, Microsoft Virtual Server

What goes wrong?:

Frequently the disk(s) that run(s) the VM will develop a fault and the VM will no longer be accessible. There are a variety of different ways in which a hard disk can fail, and whether the VM will be recoverable or not depends on the type of disk fault and its severity.
Other times the actual VM file will suffer damage or corruption.
In both cases, Data Clinic are often able to fully recover the VM and its associated data.

What to do: The number one rule is to power down the hard drive(s) that hold the VM. If there is no power getting to the drive(s) then no further harm can come to the VM. The next thing to do is call us - we should be able to help you.

Additional information: If your VM is held on a RAID device you may wish to read about data recovery from RAID servers and arrays.

Above: Typical VMware infrastructure