If TestDisk fails, you may need to use vmfs-tools (specifically vmfs-info ) to find the start sector of the volume. By calculating the offsets, you can manually recreate the partition entry using partedUtil in ESXi.
Accidental formatting or "initializing" by a non-ESXi operating system (like Windows or Linux) can overwrite critical VMFS "Lock" and "Heartbeat" regions. recover vmfs file system
Power surges or host crashes during snapshot operations can leave the file system header or allocation map inconsistent. If TestDisk fails, you may need to use