StarWind Software

Hi There,

I've just installed the free version and I could easily generate a ESXi 6 additional datastore from a Windows 7 Pro PC. It will serve as an off-site (VPN) backup for an Windows Server 2012 r2 E virtualised.

Now I wanted to make sure that we can easily browse for the data in case of disaster. Is it possible to browse an img file and retrieve the data easily? I tried with 7zip but I could not.

Thank you very much,
Best,
ofnd

Yes IMGs are actually binary "dumps" of the whole virtual LUN. They have some offset (typically 64K) used by StarWind itself so you have to check your XML for IMG manually to see this actual offset and ask 7zip or other browser to skip it. Simple

ofnd wrote:Hi There,

I've just installed the free version and I could easily generate a ESXi 6 additional datastore from a Windows 7 Pro PC. It will serve as an off-site (VPN) backup for an Windows Server 2012 r2 E virtualised.

Now I wanted to make sure that we can easily browse for the data in case of disaster. Is it possible to browse an img file and retrieve the data easily? I tried with 7zip but I could not.

Thank you very much,
Best,
ofnd

Hi Anton,

Thank you for your quick reply. I am not sure to understand concretely how to do that. When I open the IMG file I have a 0.img file and in 7zip it show 512 offset. So now I don't understand how to make 7zip avoiding these 512 offset. Command line? Could you please advise on how to do it?

Thank you again,
Best,
OFND

Please ask on your application support forum. We're StarWind here and not 7zip

ofnd wrote:Hi Anton,

Thank you for your quick reply. I am not sure to understand concretely how to do that. When I open the IMG file I have a 0.img file and in 7zip it show 512 offset. So now I don't understand how to make 7zip avoiding these 512 offset. Command line? Could you please advise on how to do it?

Thank you again,
Best,
OFND

Hi Anton,

if it is so simple could you provide me the easy steps to do it because I tried to find how to do it on the web but it seems that I cannot find the way.

Thank you again Anton,
Best,

Try OSFMount from PassMark (just for Chris sake don't use their disk benchmark utility!) from here:

http://www.osforensics.com/tools/mount-disk-images.html

Open IMG and set "Image file offset" to proper value from StarWind corresponding IMG's XML file.

ofnd wrote:Hi Anton,

if it is so simple could you provide me the easy steps to do it because I tried to find how to do it on the web but it seems that I cannot find the way.

Thank you again Anton,
Best,

Hi Anton,

I am still unsuccessful to open the img despite many test. I ma y have missed something. I found the XML file (attached) but I am not sure that value should I take. You mentioned 64 KBytes but it did not work for me. I attached the error message I get when I mount it and also the mounting procedure.
Thank you for guiding me on this.

Best,
ofnd

Hi ofnd,

Just 2 things:

• The offset varies for different StarWind versions and the latest version has no offset at all (0 offset)
• I am afraid, that VMFS5 is not Windows browsable file system

Thank you for your reply,

so what should have been so easy became impossible. At least I know that now.

Thank you anyway,
Best,
ofnd

Sigh....

Guys don't panic You can try this one:

https://www.petri.com/access-vmfs-volum ... mware-host

Good luck

I believe that it's possible, but requires some creativity and applying of a weird workaround. For example, look toward a nested virtualization (ESX inside Hyper-V and so on)

And also it's better to ask VMware about its vmfs5.