Recovery of a virtual machine while running the virtual machine from a backup archive

A method, computer program product, computing system, and system for recovering a virtual machine while running the virtual machine from a backup archive are described. The method may include emulating the virtual machine in preparation for finalizing the recovery of the virtual machine. The method may include creating a snapshot of the emulated virtual machine to redirect changes to the emulated virtual machine to a second delta file in the production datastore. The method may include cloning an original base virtual disk, including the first delta file, to the production datastore to create a cloned base virtual disk. The method may include patching a virtual disk file descriptor of the second delta file of the emulated virtual machine. The patching operation may include replacing links to the original base virtual disk of the emulated virtual machine, including the first delta file, with links to the cloned base virtual disk.