Virtual Machine Recovery
Your VM won't boot. That doesn't mean it's gone.
VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox and more — deleted or corrupted VMs, broken snapshot chains, and unmountable virtual disks recovered in our own Belfast laboratory. Stop the hypervisor from touching it again and talk to an engineer first.
What we do
Virtual environments recovered, not just copied.
When storage corruption, a failed snapshot merge or a hypervisor crash takes down a VM, the impact is immediate — the server, database or application inside it goes with it.
We recover damaged, deleted and corrupted virtual machines for IT teams, MSPs and business owners across the UK and Ireland. That covers virtual disk files such as VMDK and VHDX, data trapped in broken snapshot chains, and machines a hypervisor refuses to mount or boot.
All work is carried out in-house at our Belfast lab under one chain of custody — nothing is outsourced. Where the VM sits on RAID or NAS storage that has also failed, our RAID and NAS recovery capability is applied first, then the virtual environment is reconstructed on top.
Do not attempt a repeat boot, force a snapshot consolidation, or run guest-level repair tools on a VM that is already showing corruption — each of these can overwrite the very data a recovery depends on. Power the host down cleanly and get in touch.
Coverage
Every major hypervisor, every failure mode.
VMware
vSphere/ESXi, Workstation and Fusion. VMFS volumes, standalone VMDKs, full VMX+VMDK sets, flat, sparse and delta disk formats.
Microsoft Hyper-V
VHD and VHDX recovery, Cluster Shared Volume environments, and Hyper-V server versions from 2012 through 2022.
Proxmox VE / KVM
QCOW2, RAW, VMDK and LVM-thin, including open-source hypervisors running on ZFS or Btrfs storage.
Other platforms
VirtualBox, Parallels, Citrix XenServer/XCP-ng, Nutanix AHV and TrueNAS/FreeNAS running bhyve or KVM.
RAID & NAS-backed storage
VMs stored on a failed RAID array or a Synology/QNAP NAS datastore — recovered from the storage layer up.
Learn more →Custom & legacy infrastructure
Hybrid and non-standard virtual storage setups not listed here are usually still recoverable — ask us.
What we see
Common causes of VM data loss.
- Accidentally deleted VM files or disk images
- Corrupted VMDK, VHD or QCOW2 files
- Failed snapshot merges or broken delta chains
- Virtual disk errors preventing a VM from booting
- File system corruption inside the guest OS (NTFS, EXT4 and others)
- Hypervisor host crash or a misconfigured update
- RAID or NAS failure affecting underlying VM storage
- Failed migrations or interrupted clones
- Thin-provisioned disks exceeding allocation
- Ransomware encrypting files inside the VM environment
Disk formats we work with include VMDK, VHD/VHDX, QCOW/QCOW2, IMG, RAW, ISO, and exported OVA/OVF appliance packages — including files that are partially damaged, overwritten, or disconnected from the hypervisor entirely.
Process
From failed VM to restored environment.
- 01
Assessment
An engineer reviews the failure — hypervisor, storage layer, and what is or isn't mounting — and confirms whether it's a logical or physical issue.
- 02
Imaging
The host storage (VMFS, EXT4, ZFS or otherwise) is imaged. All reconstruction work happens on these images, never on your original storage.
- 03
Reconstruction & extraction
The VM is reconstructed from intact or fragmented virtual disk files, or data is extracted directly from within the guest file system.
- 04
Return
Delivered as a restored VM ready to power on, an extracted file system, or a virtual disk image for you to reintegrate — your choice.
Questions
Asked by IT teams and MSPs.
Can you recover a VM that won't boot?
Usually, yes. A VM that fails to boot or that the hypervisor won't mount is one of the most common cases we handle. We image the underlying storage and reconstruct the virtual disk independently of the hypervisor, so a broken boot chain is not the end of the road.
What if the snapshot chain is broken?
Broken or partially merged snapshot chains are recoverable in most cases. We work directly with the delta and descriptor files at a forensic level rather than relying on the hypervisor's own (often failing) consolidation process.
Our VM storage was on a failed RAID or NAS — can you still help?
Yes. We handle the storage-layer recovery first — see our RAID and NAS services — then reconstruct the virtual machine from the recovered array. It is all done under one roof and one chain of custody.
Can you return a VM that just powers on again, or only files?
Both, depending on what you need. We can return a fully restored VM ready to power on, an extracted file system with your documents and databases, or a raw virtual disk image for you to reintegrate into your own environment.
Do you sign NDAs for corporate or legal cases?
Yes, routinely. Every case is handled under confidentiality and a documented chain of custody in our own laboratory, with an NDA available on request.
Diagnosis first, then a fixed quote confirmed before any recovery work begins. Speak to a specialist about what happened and what to do next.