I have a similar problem, but have MUCH more information about my particular mess and have not touched the drives since deleting my file.
BACKGROUND:
Using esxi 4.1, using GUI only.
I was preparing to migrate an old Server 2003 VM to a new Server 2008 R2 VM so I could delete the old server for all my Windows Server needs. My friend, with a desire to be future-ready and wanting to have RAID redundancy had me install a network iSCSI device with Raid 1 drives (1TB each). I did so by copying the server files from his host datastore to the iSCSI LUN and created a new VM using the existing .vmdx file for the 'existing disk'. My friend wanted to have access to this massive new storage space, so I relented and allocated 850GB (of 900GB LUN) to his Server 2003. (server 2008 came later and was on different datastore). This process created a new .vmdx file in my newly created Server 2003 v2 folder on the datastore and I deleted the Server 2003 VM but left the Server 2003 folder for backup.
I was asked this week to migrate Active Directory and his file server to his 2008 server which has been running for 6 months now and delete the old 2003 server. My plan was to shrink the partition on the 2003 server, move the 2008 server to the iSCSI, prep the 2003 for AD migration, dcpromo the 2008 server, create new shares, transfer files, change login scripts for mapping, and call it a night. Plan was tomorrow to verify full replication and take the 2003 offline.
I started by booting the 2003 server to a live CD and tried to use GParted to resize the partition. After about 10min of the shrink operation running, I got an error message from esxi that my datastore was out of space, retry or cancel. Upon checking the host's storage, I saw that it was reporting only 2.5GB (or MB?). I started moving my 'backup' folder from that datastore to the esx server's internal datastore hoping to free up some space, but it promised to take 2hrs due to a large VM disk file. So I went in and tried to delete the Server 2003 folder (old server, I thought). It wouldn't let me. After an hour of waiting, I finally hit 'cancel' on the esx popup error message and the 'server 2003 v2' VM shut down. I tried again to delete the Server 2003 folder and it deleted, freeing up 800GB of space it appeared. My 'Server 2003 v2' VM showed only 17GB of used space of it's provisioned 850GB. Thinking I had room to spare, I tried to restart the VM and discovered that I had just done something wrong. An hour later, I realized that I deleted the Parent .vmdx of my VM, and the VM was not going to start without it.
WHAT I KNOW:
I know the datastore the files were in
I know the names of the files
The LUN is accessible
Nothing has been written to the drives since deleting the folder (I turned off both VMs -- weekends rock)
I do not have a recent backup - important data is the files that store my friend's database of customers to visit in the future and past visits (plumber)
I made LOTS of thoughtless mistakes and am worthy of serious chiding and fun-poking
WHAT I DON'T KNOW:
How to undelete these files:
the .vmdx file -and-
the .vmx file
Who knows the information I should know to solve this problem - and -
What will compel them to share this information with me before my friend's business suffers from my mistake 36 hours from now.
PLEASE HELP. THANK YOU FOR WHATEVER YOU CAN OFFER!
