> The product is installed on Windows (in my case, on a Windows VM).
Ok - it is basically irrelevant wether the Windows is a VM by the way.
> The problem is that in order to read the VMFS (that is mounted and in production) I have to also mount it on the VM as a raw disk.
Why on earth did you do that ???
That is not at all necessary - normally you connect to the ESXi host via network when you want to recover something from VMFS-volumes.
And normally you would take all precautions to access any VMFS-volumes strictly readonly.
When you delete a VMDK accidentaly from a VMFS-datastore this are the next steps that I would suggest :
1. silence all activity on the datastore - especially try to power off very active thin VMs.
2. create a VMFS-header dump as soon as possible - see Create a VMFS-Header-dump using an ESXi-Host in production | VM-Sickbay
3. pick either the Trial Diskinternals tool or the UFSexplorer trial CD
- if you use Diskinternals use a standalone PC (preferably ) or use a Windows VM (server 2008, win 7 , or server 2012 or 2016)
- follow the Diskinternals Wizard and create a remote connection to your ESXi.
if you use UFSexplorer run it on a ESXi-VM and use UFSexplorer LiveCD.
Watch out - success during first use with the Diskinternals-tool is not the rule in my experience.
Make sure you do not just run a time-consuming standard signature based scan - search for VMFS volumes !
Anyway - either I miss something or you just believe you need a RDM for recovery - but IMHO you do not need it at all.
Ulli
