To mount a VMFS 6 datastore on Windows—often required when a host is down and you need to "hot-plug" the drive to recover files—you generally need third-party tools because Windows cannot natively read this VMware proprietary file system. Best Methods for VMFS 6 on Windows
DiskInternals VMFS Recovery (Recommended for VMFS 6)This is one of the few tools that explicitly supports VMFS 6 on Windows 10 and 11. It can mount the datastore as a virtual drive or allow you to browse it in a "Recovery" mode to copy files.
Step 1: Download and install VMFS Recovery from DiskInternals.
Step 2: Connect your physical disk (via SATA, SAS, or USB) to the Windows PC. Step 3: Launch the software and select the physical drive.
Step 4: Run a "Fast" or "Full" scan to find the VMFS partition.
Step 5: Right-click the partition and select Mount as Disk to assign a Windows drive letter.
WSL2 with vmfs6-tools (Free/Open Source Workaround)Since the popular "Open Source VMFS Driver" (Java-based) typically only supports up to VMFS 3/5, Windows users often use WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) to run Linux-native tools.
Step 1: In an Admin PowerShell, identify your disk: GET-CimInstance -query "SELECT * from Win32_DiskDrive".
Step 2: Mount the bare disk to WSL: wsl --mount \\.\PHYSICALDRIVEx --bare (replace x with your disk number).
Step 3: Inside your WSL terminal (e.g., Ubuntu), install the tools: sudo apt install vmfs6-tools.
Step 4: Create a mount point and mount it: sudo vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdX /mnt/vmfs.
VMware Workstation (For .VMDK Files)If you have already moved the .vmdk files to a Windows drive and just need to "mount" them to see the data inside the virtual disk itself, use VMware Workstation. Go to File > Map Virtual Disks and select your .vmdk file.
Choose a drive letter to browse the internal files as if it were a local drive. Important Notes
Read-Only Access: Most third-party tools provide read-only access to prevent datastore corruption.
Safety: Always set the drive to Offline in Windows Disk Management before trying to mount it through WSL2 or recovery tools to avoid Windows attempting to initialize or format the "Unknown" partition.
Dante kept his toolbox open but never used wrenches on servers. He was a systems engineer who liked clean commands and quiet racks. That Tuesday morning, the data center hummed like an eager city; a maintenance alert blinked orange on his dashboard: a crucial Windows host had gone hot—CPU spiking, services stalled—and one VM’s datastore had gone offline. The datastore label read VMFS-6.
He brewed coffee and told himself this would be routine: identify the issue, mount the VMFS, restore access. In the elevator, his phone buzzed with the operations team’s messages—“host overheating,” “guest unreachable,” “snapshot tasks failing.” Dante pictured the VMFS volume as a locked warehouse; his job was finding the right key without smashing windows. mount vmfs 6 windows hot
At the rack, the affected host—an aging box with a newer sticker—was warm to the touch. Dante logged into the vSphere client and saw the datastore greyed out. The host had claimed the VMFS but failed to present it cleanly. He could detach and reattach the storage adapter, but that risked interrupting other tenants. He preferred a surgical approach.
First, he moved noncritical workloads off the host, vMotioning a few low-priority VMs to neighboring blades. The host eased; the CPU dropped from panic to perspiration. Next, Dante checked the storage paths: one path showed errors. Multipathing had flailed and presented the datastore as inaccessible to the Windows host. The datastore itself was healthy—metadata intact—but the host’s view was corrupted.
He opened an SSH session to the host and ran the vmkfstools and esxcli commands he’d practiced in quieter times. The output showed the VMFS-6 signature present but not mounted. A careful probe confirmed the host hadn’t claimed the volume exclusively—good news. That meant he could mount the volume read-only to inspect without risking writes. He mounted it, like easing open that locked warehouse door and stepping inside with flashlight in hand.
The VM’s VMDK files were there, timestamps recent. Dante copied the most important VMDK descriptor to a secure location, then created a temporary datastore mapping to expose the VMDK to a rescue VM. From the rescue VM—running a minimal Windows environment—he attached the disk and discovered a corrupted NTFS partition table. The Windows host had been writing heavily during a failed path failover, leaving the filesystem mid-update.
Now for the delicate part: repairing without losing data. He ran chkdsk in read-only analysis mode to catalog the damage, then used a combination of Windows repair utilities and a controlled fsck from the host to rebuild the allocation table. Each command was like a careful stitch. The rescue VM hummed but stayed stable.
The fix didn’t happen all at once. Dante staged the recovery: repair, verify, mount read-only, verify again, then finally commit. When he remounted the VMFS in read-write mode, the datastore flickered back into life and the VM’s services answered pings. The Windows host cooled as its processes settled. Around him, operators exhaled.
He documented every step in the ticket: commands run, checksums, snapshots taken, and a note that the multipath policy had been adjusted to avoid a repeat. Before leaving, Dante scheduled a firmware update for the array controllers and a maintenance window for a more thorough health check. The day had started hot and messy; it ended with a clean datastore and a quiet rack.
On the drive home Dante replayed the morning like a short story—mystery, tension, resolution—only the characters were paths and partitions, and the happy ending was a mounted VMFS-6 that served its VMs once more.
Mounting VMFS 6 on Windows: A Hot Topic
Are you a Windows user looking to access your VMware virtual machine file system (VMFS) on your local machine? Perhaps you have a VMFS 6 datastore that you want to browse or recover data from, but you're not sure how to mount it on your Windows system. Well, you're in luck! In this post, we'll explore the process of mounting VMFS 6 on Windows, and discuss some popular tools and methods for achieving this.
What is VMFS 6?
VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) is a file system used by VMware to store virtual machines (VMs) on a datastore. VMFS 6 is the latest version of this file system, introduced with VMware vSphere 6.5. It's designed to provide high-performance storage for VMs, with features like thin provisioning, deduplication, and compression.
Why Mount VMFS 6 on Windows?
There are several reasons why you might want to mount a VMFS 6 datastore on your Windows system:
Methods for Mounting VMFS 6 on Windows
There are a few methods to mount a VMFS 6 datastore on Windows: To mount a VMFS 6 datastore on Windows
Step-by-Step Guide to Mounting VMFS 6 on Windows
Here's a step-by-step guide to mounting a VMFS 6 datastore on Windows using VMFS Tools:
Conclusion
Mounting a VMFS 6 datastore on Windows can be a useful skill for VMware administrators and power users. With the right tools and knowledge, you can access your VMFS 6 datastore on your Windows system, recover data, or migrate data to a Windows-based storage system. While the process may seem daunting at first, it's relatively straightforward with the right guidance. We hope this post has provided a helpful guide to mounting VMFS 6 on Windows.
Windows cannot natively read or mount VMFS 6 partitions. To "hot" mount or access these volumes on a Windows host without rebooting or formatting, you must use third-party drivers or recovery tools. Strategies for Accessing VMFS 6 on Windows
Since VMFS is a proprietary VMware clustered file system, Windows Disk Management will typically show these partitions as "Healthy (Primary Partition)" but without a drive letter or recognizable file system.
VMFS Reader Tools: Specialized software like the Free VMFS Reader from VMFS Recovery can mount VMFS 6 volumes in a read-only state. This is ideal for "hot" access to extract .vmdk files or logs without taking the datastore offline from its original host.
Third-Party Drivers: Commercial tools such as NAKIVO or Vinchin provide methods to bridge VMFS volumes to Windows, often through iSCSI initiators or proprietary mounting agents.
UFS Explorer: This utility supports VMFS 6 specifically, allowing you to browse the contents of a physical disk or RAID array connected to Windows and copy files directly to an NTFS/ReFS drive. VMFS 6 Technical Context
VMFS 6 introduced significant metadata changes from version 5, including 4K alignment and automatic space reclamation (UNMAP). These changes make version 6 incompatible with many older "VMFS-tools" drivers originally built for VMFS 3 or 5. Max Capacity Block Size 1 MB (Unified) 4K Native Support Space Reclamation Automatic (Hot) Important Precautions
Read-Only Priority: Unless using a high-end forensic tool, always mount VMFS volumes as Read-Only on Windows. Windows may attempt to write signatures to the disk, which can corrupt the VMFS metadata and make the datastore unreadable by ESXi.
Hardware Connection: For a "hot" mount, the storage (SATA, SAS, or iSCSI LUN) must be presented to the Windows OS via the Device Manager. Once the physical disk is visible, the third-party reader can scan the VMFS partition. How to Mount VMFS in Windows, Linux, and ESXi - NAKIVO
Mounting a VMFS 6 partition directly on Windows is not natively supported. While older versions (VMFS 3) could be mounted using open-source Java drivers, modern VMFS 6 environments require specific workarounds or third-party recovery software. Option 1: Mounting via WSL2 (Recommended)
This is the most effective "hot" method on Windows 10/11 because it leverages Linux-based vmfs6-tools without needing a full virtual machine.
Set the disk offline: Open Disk Management, locate your VMFS drive, right-click, and select Offline. This prevents Windows from locking the disk.
Identify the disk: Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:GET-CimInstance -query "SELECT * from Win32_DiskDrive"Note the index number (e.g., \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1). Mount in WSL:wsl --mount \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 --bare Short Story — "Mount VMFS 6: Windows Hot"
Access in Linux: Launch your WSL2 terminal (e.g., Ubuntu) and install the tools:sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install vmfs6-tools
Mount locally:sudo vmfs6-fuse /dev/sdX1 /mnt/vmfs (where /dev/sdX is your drive found via lsblk). Option 2: Nested ESXi in VMware Workstation
If you need a reliable "hot" mount to browse and copy files (VMX/VMDK), nesting is the standard professional approach. How to Mount VMFS in Windows, Linux, and ESXi - NAKIVO
Windows cannot natively mount VMFS 6 partitions . Because VMFS is a proprietary clustered file system used by VMware ESXi, you must use third-party drivers or recovery tools to access its contents on a Windows host. Experts Exchange Option 1: Using Open Source VMFS Drivers You can use Java-based drivers like the Open Source VMFS Driver to gain read-only access to your files. Identify the Disk Disk Management in Windows to find the disk number (e.g., Disk 1). Download & Extract : Obtain the driver archive (e.g., fvmfs_r95_dist.zip ) and extract it to a folder like Run via CMD
: Open Command Prompt as Administrator and navigate to your extraction folder. Mount via WebDAV
: Use the following command to share the disk via the WebDAV protocol: java -jar fvmfs.jar \\.\PhysicalDrive1 webdav Access Files
: Map a network drive in Windows to the WebDAV address provided by the tool. Option 2: Recovery & Browsing Tools
If you need a graphical interface or the partition is damaged, specialized tools are often more reliable. DiskInternals DiskInternals VMFS Recovery
: A common choice for mounting VMFS volumes to recover VMDK files or browse data directly within Windows. VMFS Recovery Tool
: Provides a CLI for mounting and analyzing volumes across Windows and Linux. DiskInternals
Option 3: The Virtual ESXi Method (Recommended for Stability)
For the most stable "hot" access without risky third-party drivers, you can use a nested ESXi environment. Experts Exchange VMware Workstation on your Windows PC. Create a virtual machine and install In VM settings, add a Physical Disk and select the drive containing your VMFS partition. Power on the virtual ESXi and use the vSphere Client to browse and download files. Experts Exchange Critical Limitations
: Most Windows-based VMFS tools only provide read access. Do not attempt to write data, as it may corrupt the volume. VMFS 6 Compatibility : Ensure the tool specifically supports (introduced with ESXi 6.5); older tools like vmfs-tools (v0.0.4) often only support VMFS 5 and below. vmfsrecover.com for this process? Can I mount a VMFS formatted HDD from Windows or Linux 26 Feb 2011 —
Price: ~$270. Worth it for enterprise DR.
VMFS 6 uses sub-blocks and thin provisioning. Ensure your tool is updated for VMFS 6 (not just VMFS 5). Older tools will show an empty folder.
Before you begin, ensure you have: