Virtual Machine Recovery Knowledge Base

Many organisations rely on virtual machines in their data centres and implement backups through Veeam software products. Ontrack fully supports the recovery of VMware, vSphere, and Microsoft Hyper-V integrated with the Veeam environment.

If you store critical data on your virtual machine, be sure to include it in your backup routine. You may need to specify the location of the virtual machine files in your backup software to ensure they are part of scheduled backups.Always backup your data to a secondary storage device such as an external hard drive. Backup copies of files stored on the same hard drive where the active virtual machine is located risk data loss if the hard drive fails. For safety, make multiple backups and store them on a different local server/hard drive, in the cloud or on tape. Having additional backups will help you in the event of a data loss.

Since 2008, Ontrack has performed thousands of successful data recoveries from virtual machines. Our proprietary software tools allow us to complete successful data recoveries from nearly any virtual machine, server or system; including VMware®, Microsoft® Hyper-V®, Citrix®, Linux® XEN®, and Oracle® VM.

Common problems with virtual machines include:

• Re-formatted ‘Datastore’
• Corrupted virtual disk files
• Corrupt VMFS Datastore volumes
• Deleted virtual disk files
• Deleted snapshots
• Corrupted file systems
• Traditional RAID and hardware failures

There are a number of reasons for virtual machines to slow down. While most are not related to a potential data loss you should proceed with caution and backup as soon as possible.Follow these steps to resolve the performance issue:Test the storage device for hardware issues and the file system for corruption.  Check the version of the virtual machine software on the host computer to ensure the latest version is installed.Be sure that antivirus software is properly installed and updated regularly.Check the virtual machine host software settings to ensure they set up properly.

Ontrack has performed thousands of successful data recoveries from servers hosting virtual machines. Our proprietary software tools allow us to complete successful data recoveries from nearly any virtual machine, server or system; including VMware®, Microsoft® Hyper-V®, Citrix®, Linux® XEN®, and Oracle® VM.