VM fails to power on due to vmdks 0 in size

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

VMDKs show a size of 0

VMFS datastores were the VMDKs reside also show 0 in size

var/log/vmkernel.log shows errors "No such partition on target" and/or "No filesystem on the device"

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi (All Versions)

Cause

This is due to the VMFS partition and/or LVM is missing from the device. This is typically caused by mounting/mapping a VMFS datastore to non-ESXi OS like Linux or Windows.

Resolution

Open a case with VMware by Broadcom support for further assistance