Here is a procedure how to access a hard drive formatted in VMWare’s VMFS file system from Windows. This could be handy if an ESXi host crashes, if a hard drive fails or for digital forensics.
1- Download VMFS driver : http://code.google.com/p/vmfs/
2- Unzip it to a path-friendly location (C:\vmfs)
3- Make sure java.exe is in your PATH environment variable, if not, add it.
4- Test-run fvmfs.jar by typing in administrator command prompt:
cd \vmfs java -jar fvmfs.jar
5- Connect the external drive to your computer and check its disk number in Windows Disk Management. Disk 1 will be named \\.\PhysicalDrive1 in vmfs
6- Check if we can access the disk
java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info
7- Share using webdav
java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 webdav
8- Make sure the webclient service is running
9- Mount the drive
net use * http://localhost:50080/vmfs
10- Your drive should now be mounted as a standard windows drive.
This driver gives you read-only access to the file system.
hello,
I have tested this tool on two Hard Drives (Raid 5, Raid1 – 3ware 9650SE), but I get every time the lower Exception.
Can anyone help me or knows the problem?
I need the tool, otherwise I need to copy 5TB external Hard Drives.
Thank you 🙂
Here is the exception:
C:\vmfs>java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 info
VMFSTools (C) by fluid Operations (v0.9.8.18 r95 / 2010-01-25_15-57-35)
http://www.fluidops.com
Exception in thread “main” java.io.IOException: java.lang.Exception: No VMware F
ile System detected
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver$ExtentInfo.(VMFSDriver.java:
662)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver.setVolumeIOAccess(VMFSDriver.java:
1751)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver.openSingleVolume(VMFSDriver.java:1
714)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver.openVolume(VMFSDriver.java:1701)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSTools.getVMFSDriver(VMFSTools.java:185)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSTools.cli(VMFSTools.java:224)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSTools.main(VMFSTools.java:492)
Caused by: java.lang.Exception: No VMware File System detected
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver$ExtentInfo.readVmfsLvmInfo(VMFSDri
ver.java:717)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver$ExtentInfo.readVmfsLvmInfo(VMFSDri
ver.java:676)
at com.fluidops.tools.vmfs.VMFSDriver$ExtentInfo.(VMFSDriver.java:
657)
… 6 more