Unable to see the datastore even after storage rescan

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After installing ESXi on a host  storage devices on fibre channel HBA are not visible even after performing a storage rescan.
• In the vCenter Server Under Host and Clusters view >> Configure >> Storage adapters, the vmhba adapters shows no devices attached.

 

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

This issue may occur if the Fibre Channel HBA is running incompatible firmware or if the installed driver version is not compatible with the ESXi version on the host.

• The /var/log/vmkernel.log file on the ESXi host reports error messages indicating a potential issue with the HBA.

2025-04-18T11:23:09.551Z cpu1:2097850)vmw_ahci[000000170]: ahciInit:do IssueHbaReset before device probe
2025-04-18T11:23:09.551Z cpu1:2097850)vmw_ahci[000000170]: IssueHbaReset:Issuing HBA reset.
2025-04-18T11:23:09.592Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcAllocFwDump:972: Allocated (4722 KB) for firmware dump...
2025-04-18T11:23:09.823Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcExecuteFw:652: qlnativefcExecuteFw: 0x0 - mb[5]
2025-04-18T11:23:09.833Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcMailboxCommand:439: qlnativefcMailboxCommand(2): **** FAILED
 mb[0]=4005 mb[1]=22 cmd=31 ****2025-04-18T11:23:09.833Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcReadSfpMbx:4423: (2): failed=102 (4005)
2025-04-18T11:23:09.833Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcReadSfpMbx:4425: qlnativefcReadSfpMbx: sfp is not there
2025-04-18T11:23:09.833Z cpu15:2097847)WARNING: qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcReadSfp:4464:failed to send read sfp mailbox
2025-04-18T11:23:09.834Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlnativefcReadSfpDev:4603: Unable to read SFP data (102/a0/0).

2025-04-18T11:23:09.834Z cpu15:2097847)qlnativefc: (5e:0.1): qlanativefcDetectSfp:1361: SFP detect: Short-Range SFP  (nvr=0 ll=0 lr=0 lrd=0).

 

Resolution

• The existing firmware and driver version running on the FC HBA card need to be validated for compatibility with the ESXi  by referring to this article: Determining Network/Storage firmware and driver version in ESXi
• If the current firmware version running on the FC HBA card is incompatible with the installed ESXi version. Please contact the hardware vendor to upgrade to a supported firmware version.
• Upgrading the firmware/driver ensures compatibility between the FC HBA  and ESXi, which is crucial for proper storage detection and functionality.