How to Recover Data from Virtual Disk

It’s hard to tell whether you can access your virtual disk or not. But it is possible to recover data from virtual disk if it has not been overwritten by new data on your computer or your external hard drive.

• Part 1: What is Virtual Hard Disk
• Part 2: Reasons for Data Loss in Virtual Systems
• Part 3: How to Recover Data from Virtual Disk

Part 1: What is Virtual Hard Disk

A virtual hard disk or VHD is a sort of drive that works just as the physical hard drive except that it has special variations. In short, a virtual disk is accessed, controlled and installed on a virtual machine network. Indeed, a VHD is thought to be a file format or an application. It is made for virtual machines. Boasting the same hard drive partitions and a file system found on a physical hard drive, a virtual disk has all the capabilities a computer user needs. It can run an operating system, create files and folders and execute any application or request.

Although it is designed in the physical hard drive, the VHD has its own logical component. You can make many drive sectors within it so as to run numerous virtual hard drives at the same time. Every sector runs independently, meaning that it does not overwrite or interfere with the running of the other VHDs. Concerning size, virtual hard disks can have a flexible or a fixed size. Size is controlled by the virtualization manager or the parent operating system. The virtual PC run by Microsoft on its Windows OS was initially bought from Connectix Inc.

Part 2: Reasons for Data Loss in Virtual Systems

As we have noted above, VHDs are so similar to physical hard disk drives. Hence, they are as prone to data loss as the typical physical hard disks are. And when they encounter damage that leads to data loss or corrupted files, VHDs cannot be useful at all to the user. But why would data loss occur in virtual systems? The following are common reasons why.

• Corrupted VMDK or virtual disk files
• Hardware failures
• RAID issues
• Corrupted VMFS Datastore volumes
• Reformatted VMware. This is a Datastore that keeps every file that is associated with virtual computer volume
• Deleted virtual disk files or VMDK

Is it possible to recover data from Virtual disk?

If you have a virtual hard disk on your computer that contains valuable data and you would love to save it, you may wonder whether it’s possible to access your VHD and recover all your data. First, it is good to note that finding out whether you can access your virtual disk when it becomes unresponsive is difficult. Even so, you can recover data from your virtual disk as long your computer or external hard drive had not overwritten new data on it. The most common way to retrieve lost data from an unresponsive virtual hard disk is via software. If you make use of the best software, you can scan every virtual disk sector that contains valuable information. The process is quick and error-free. You can access, open, preview and transfer recoverable documents.

Part 3: How to Recover Data from Virtual Disk

There are many virtual disk data recovery programs in the Internet that are able to retrieve your data. Wondershare Data Recovery, or Wondershare Data Recovery for Mac is absolutely the one that suits you most. No matter files on your virtual disk were lost due to partition damage, partition deletion and partition formatting, this program will reclaim them easily. With an easy-to-use and user-friendly interface, you’ll recover files like videos, pictures, audio files, documents and more from your virtual disk with ease.

You can download a trial version of Wondershare Data Recovery from below. This trial version enables you to scan your virtual disk so as to check how many of lost files on your virtual disk can be recovered.

Note: If virtual disk is set on an external hard drive, please make sure it can be well-connected with your computer.

Step 1. Select a file type to start virtual disk recovery

To recver data from virtual disk, you can select the option "All File Types" to start.

Step 2. Select your virtual disk to scan files on it

You’ll need to select the physical drive that your virtual disk is set on and click "Start" button to start scanning lost data.

Then you just need to select the partition of your virtual disk and click "Start" button to begin scanning it.

Step 3. Preview data from virtual disk

When the scan is finished, found files on your virtual disk will all be displayed in program window. You can see file names to check whether files you need can be retrieved or not.

Then you just need to mark data you are going to reclaim and click "Recover" button to keep them on your computer.

Note: Please do not save the recovered files back to your virtual disk during the recovery.