Have a specific disaster recovery scenario? Always test third-party tools in a non-production environment before touching live datastores.
Before attempting to mount, ensure your environment meets these requirements:
| Expectation | Reality | |-------------|---------| | Free native solution | None. Windows has no VMFS driver. | | Hot, writable mount | Possible only with expensive tools (e.g., UFS Explorer), but extremely risky if the volume is live on ESXi. | | Read-only hot mount | Yes, with tools like DiskInternals VMFS Recovery or OSFMount (partial v6 support). | | Safe production use | Detach the datastore from ESXi first, then mount as read-only on Windows. |
However, a common pain point for IT professionals and digital forensics experts remains:
In an Admin PowerShell, identify your disk: GET-CimInstance -query "SELECT * from Win32_DiskDrive" . mount vmfs 6 windows hot
Select (do not select "Create Datastore," as creating a new one will format the drive). Select the existing VMFS 6 volume.
Here is a detailed guide and solution post for .
[Physical VMFS 6 Drive] ---> [Windows Host (Offline Mode)] ---> [Hyper-V / VMware Workstation VM] ---> [Linux VMFS Driver] Open Disk Management . Right-click the physical VMFS 6 disk.
For a completely free solution that works across Windows, Linux, and macOS, the open-source VMFS driver (also known as Free VMFS Reader) is the most accessible option. This Java application allows users to access files and folders on VMFS-formatted partitions when only non-VMware hosts are available. Have a specific disaster recovery scenario
If you encounter this error while trying to mount a partition, it means you're using tools that don't support your VMFS version. On Linux, this typically indicates that vmfs-tools (which supports VMFS3 and VMFS5) was installed when vmfs6-tools is needed.
⚠️ Writing to a VMFS 6 datastore that is still mounted to a running ESXi host will likely cause metadata corruption and VM crashes. Always use read-only for hot mounts unless the datastore is fully dismounted from all ESXi hosts.
Here's a step-by-step guide to mounting a VMFS 6 datastore on Windows using VMFS Tools:
Mount VMFS 6 in Windows: The Ultimate Hot-Mounting Guide Can you natively read VMware VMFS 6 file systems inside a Windows environment? The direct answer is . Microsoft Windows does not include built-in drivers to parse VMFS structures. Windows has no VMFS driver
Create a mount point and mount it: sudo vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdX /mnt/vmfs .
Once loaded, browse the directories and use the function to copy files off the VMFS volume onto your native Windows storage. Method 3: Using UFS Explorer Standard Recovery
There are several reasons why you might want to mount a VMFS 6 datastore on your Windows system:
: An alternative designed to scan and recover data from .vmdk files or raw VMFS partitions.