If you have recent backups, restore to a new datastore—that’s always the fastest and safest recovery. But when backups are absent, the steps above give you a fighting chance.

VMFS corruption can stem from abrupt power loss, improper storage disconnection, failing LUNs, or even accidental volume deletions. Before attempting any recovery, —formatting overwrites the VMFS header, making true recovery nearly impossible.

One of the more stressful moments for a vSphere administrator is logging into an ESXi 6 host and finding a datastore showing as "Unmounted," "Corrupt," or simply "Missing." Since VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) is the backbone for storing virtual machines, recovery becomes mission-critical.