How to retrieve pvm deleted in empty trash

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PrilyA

Bit poster
Hai Guys, I'm a newbie in this forum but now I have a problem about my parallells virtual machine.
I accidentally remove pvm from parallels machine. My manager instructs me that I must clean up the MAC and parallels machine. So I removed it from MAC evidently I forget to backup file in the machine. Could you please guys give me any advices !! or maybe the solve of manner.

I have used any recovery software and these are wondershare and stellar phoenix mac data recovery but it still problem and have not yet discovered the lost file...


I really really thanks to your answer.
 
You might have just removed it from the VM list, if that's the case, the .pvm is still in ~/Documents/Parallels. If that's not the case, continue reading.

Assuming you actually removed the VM and choose not to keep the files, which means they were sent to the trash, and you emptied the trash:
What you want to look for is an .hdd and/or .hds file, (.pvm is actually a folder/package that contains all the necessary settings and the .hdd), this is the virtual disk.

But the bad news is that if you emptied the trash it's gone, it won't be possible to retrieve, the reason is that it is a big file, several GBs in size, and it's a binary file, one single overwritten bit might render it unreadable, the big size makes the likelihood of that happen after the trash has been emptied very big, the simple fact that you installed one of these recovery apps might have overwritten over the freed up space.

The first rule of data recovery is stop using the disk where the data has been lost, do not write anything to it, use it only as read-only (connect it to another computer, use a live cd, etc).
 
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Specimen said:
You might have just removed it from the VM list, if that's the case, the .pvm is still in ~/Documents/Parallels. If that's not the case, continue reading.

Assuming you actually removed the VM and choose not to keep the files, which means they were sent to the trash, and you emptied the trash:
What you want to look for is an .hdd and/or .hds file, (.pvm is actually a folder/package that contains all the necessary settings and the .hdd), this is the virtual disk.

But the bad news is that if you emptied the trash it's gone, it won't be possible to retrieve, the reason is that it is a big file, several GBs in size, and it's a binary file, one single overwritten bit might render it unreadable, the big size makes the likelihood of that happen after the trash has been emptied very big, the simple fact that you installed one of these recovery apps might have overwritten over the freed up space.

The first rule of data recovery is stop using the disk where the data has been lost, do not write anything to it, use it only as read-only (connect it to another computer, use a live cd, etc).
Click to expand...

Thanks for your answer specimen. Your answer is true and I had tried it. but in the fact I couldn't save my lost data and I have to input again my data in the virtual machine from januari until now.
Thanks a lot.
 
Specimen

What if we were able to recover the hdd and the other files? Can we join it again or make it work?

Regards,

Alx
 
alexandreq said:
Specimen

What if we were able to recover the hdd and the other files? Can we join it again or make it work?

Regards,

Alx
Click to expand...

Yes, of course, if you can reproduce the folder structure. Look inside any other .pvm to see how they are distributed (not all files are needed, but config.pvs, VmInfo.pvi, and *.hdd are the most important, dmp/dumps and logs are optional).
 
Specimen said:
Yes, of course, if you can reproduce the folder structure. Look inside any other .pvm to see how they are distributed (not all files are needed, but config.pvs, VmInfo.pvi, and *.hdd are the most important, dmp/dumps and logs are optional).
Click to expand...

You only need the hdd file. Don't try to reproduce the folder structure of the pvm. Instead, use Parallels to make a new virtual machine, remove Hard Disk 1 that it automatically creates (tell Parallels to move it to the trash) then make a new Hard Disk 1 and select the hdd file.

If you manage to undelete the hdd file, it may have parts overwritten by other stuff. If the disk is compressed, then it might not be uncompressible anymore. If the disk was not compressed (unlikely) then it will be readable but some parts may have incorrect information. If those parts are in the directory structure, then you might not be able to find your files. If the parts are part of some OS file, then you might not be able to boot the hdd. In that case, you should install an OS to a new Hard Disk 1, and make that undeleted hdd Hard Disk 2.
 
Unlikely.

Immediately stop using your computer, as the deleted files will be overwritten soon, if you haven't recover deleted files from trash Mac timely .

Then invest in heavy-duty specialized software, or a service that might be able to recover bits and pieces, some, or (a real long shot) whole files.
Read more about Data Recovery, which is good at recovering data from hard drive or external hard drive, iPod, USB drive, SD card, digital camera, mobile phone, and MP3/MP4 player.
 
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kooltay said:
Unlikely.

Immediately stop using your computer, as the deleted files will be overwritten soon, if you haven't recover deleted files from trash Mac timely .

Then invest in heavy-duty specialized software, or a service that might be able to recover bits and pieces, some, or (a real long shot) whole files.
Read more about Data Recovery, which is good at recovering data from hard drive or external hard drive, iPod, USB drive, SD card, digital camera, mobile phone, and MP3/MP4 player.
Click to expand...

It's highly unlikely that, three months later, there's any chance at all of recovering the VM.
 
Hello everyone!
I don't know the reason, but my virtual machine has gone. There is no any .pvm files in ~Documents/Parallels. It's empty. Using PhotoRec 6.14 and target disk mode I was able to recover some .hds files. But there several problems:

1. My pvm was about 190Gb, but restored hds files are 287 Gb.
2. Recovered file don't have original names. Their names: f927017416.hds, f926986696.hds, etc.

Is there any chance to recover info from these hds files? They contains VERY-VERY important info :( Please, help :((((((
 
You shall be able to find and recover Mac files using a recovery software like Mac data recovery software from macfixz.com. Diagnose is absolutely free and done in no time on your Mac computer. Good luck!
 
Hi

Unfortunately a deleted .pvm file cannot be retrieved back once if trash is emptied. But using any third party software as Samrost suggested (Parallels won't support them) you can recover the files and the .pvm will be executable to run Windows again.
 
AlexSmail01 said:
Hello everyone!
I don't know the reason, but my virtual machine has gone. There is no any .pvm files in ~Documents/Parallels. It's empty. Using PhotoRec 6.14 and target disk mode I was able to recover some .hds files. But there several problems:

1. My pvm was about 190Gb, but restored hds files are 287 Gb.
2. Recovered file don't have original names. Their names: f927017416.hds, f926986696.hds, etc.

Is there any chance to recover info from these hds files? They contains VERY-VERY important info :( Please, help :((((((
Click to expand...

Hope this info helps you:

The difference in size is probably due to snapshots, the information is definitely there and might be salvaged but this requires tools and knowledge of the internal structure of .hdd files. One important file that you need to salvage is DiskDescriptor.xml, this file actually has the information about the real .hds names and their sizes along with snapshots. Each .hds file is a snapshot and one of them, probably the biggest one is the original disk pre-snapshots (last time snapshots where merged).

You can change the extension from .hds to .hdd and mount the disks to retrieve files using Parallels Mounter.app, right click on the .hdd file and choose to open with Parallels Mounter.app (it will fail if the file has the .hds extension).

If this doesn't work and if the data is important you should contact a professional data rescue service some of these services know how to handle virtual disks.

Don't waste money on data recovery software you find on this thread, these are spam bots posting ad spam, what you need is to reconstruct the hdd file and none of this software can help you with that.
 
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Abdul@Parallels said:
Hi

Unfortunately a deleted .pvm file cannot be retrieved back once if trash is emptied. But using any third party software as Samrost suggested (Parallels won't support them) you can recover the files and the .pvm will be executable to run Windows again.
Click to expand...

Abdul, I'm 99% sure Samrost is a spam bot, as a Parallels Support member I think you should be deleting these posts from the forum, all the threads that mention data recovery are filled with such posts with links to shaddy commercial software that are using forums to boost their ranks in google.

I think you should acknowledge other people posts when they help users, but not spam bots.
 
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