Datastores are in inaccessible state.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Unable to browse datastore files from vCenter UI and Host UI.
  
  
• Unable to read files on the VMFS datastore.
  
  
• VMs residing on the datastore appear as "Inaccessible" or "Orphaned"

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.x
VMWare ESXi 8.x

Cause

VMFS metadata corruption happens when essential metadata structures like  file allocation tables, block maps are damaged, leading to issues like inability to read, modify, or delete files, and potentially making the datastore inaccessible.

From ESXi, var/run/log vmkernel.log

2025-03-28T03:15:27.111Z cpu30:2104007)WARNING: Res3: 7066: Volume ######-########-####-#########("##-DATASTORE-##") might be damaged on the disk. Resource cluster metadata corruption has been detected.

2025-03-28T03:15:27.111Z cpu30:2104007)WARNING: FS3: 608: VMFS volume ##-DATASTORE-##/########-########-####-######### on naa.###############:1 has been detected corrupted

2025-03-28T03:15:27.111Z cpu30:2104007)FS3: 610: While filing a PR, please report the names of all hosts that attach to this LUN, tests that were running on them,

2025-03-28T03:15:27.111Z cpu30:2104007)FS3: 634: and upload the dump by `voma -m vmfs -f dump -d /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.################:1 -D X`

Resolution

In case of similar corruption issues. Please reach out to Broadcom Support

 

 

Additional Information

If VMFS volume corruption symptoms occur, refer to the steps from KB to perform a VOMA check - Using vSphere On-disk Metadata Analyzer (VOMA) to check VMFS metadata consistency