If you’ve found yourself searching for "mount VMFS 6 windows hot," you are likely in one of two stressful situations: either you’re trying to perform a live migration, or (more likely) a VMware host has failed, and you need to pull critical data off a VMFS LUN immediately using a Windows machine. Link — Uncutmazaco
Here is how to safely access VMFS 6 data on Windows, along with the tools you need to get the job done. First, a clarification on the word "hot." In VMware terms, "Hot Add" or "Hot Extend" refers to adding storage while the VM is running. However, if you are connecting a VMFS drive to a Windows OS, that Windows OS treats it as a foreign device. Stickamvids Xxlovetoskate22xavi | Hot
There is currently provided by Microsoft or VMware to mount VMFS 6 as a readable drive letter (like E:\ ) inside Windows.
To access the data, you need third-party tools that act as a "bridge," reading the VMFS structure and extracting the files. If you need access right now and don’t want to spin up a Linux virtual machine, third-party software is your best bet. These tools allow you to "mount" the VMFS volume in read-only mode to copy VMDK files out.
Have you successfully recovered data from a VMFS 6 drive on Windows? Let us know which tool saved your day in the comments below!
There is a common misconception that you can simply plug a VMFS drive into a Windows PC and read it like an NTFS or FAT32 drive. Windows does not natively understand the file system. If you try to open the disk in Disk Management, Windows will prompt you to "Initialize" it, which is a trap—doing so will destroy your data.