VMFS datastore unexpectedly renamed resulting in inaccessible VM's and PSOD: VERIFY bora/vmkernel/sched/cpusched.c:11249

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

VM's become inaccessible in vSphere Client
A working VMFS datastore suddenly appears to have a different name in the vSphere Client
You may experience a PSOD similar to the following:

 

Environment

• vSphere ESXi 7.x
• vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

• The datastore was deleted, overwritten or corrupted.

Resolution

Verify the current partition table on the affected LUN:

partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/<device ID>

...where <device ID> is the t10.xxx, naa.xxx, or eui.xxx device ID

You should see output similar to the following:

Device:  /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789
Partition table:
gpt
XXXX 255 63 YYYYYYYYY
1 2048 ZZZZZZZZZ AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0

Usable sectors:
34 ZZZZZZZZZ

If not, then the partition table no longer contains a valid VMFS partition and has been deleted, overwritten, or corrupted.

Depending on the situation, you may be able to restore access to the VM's by replacing the incorrect/missing partition table with a valid VMFS partition table similar to the above (see: Using partedUtil command line disk partitioning utility on ESXi) . Please contact Broadcom Technical Support for assistance.

Otherwise, recovery from backups or data recovery service engagement will be required (see:  Data recovery services for data not recoverable by VMware Technical Support).

Additional Information

A common scenario is when a customer has re-installed ESXi on an existing host, leaving the fabric or network cabling connected to the host, so that the host still has visibility to LUN's other than the boot LUN.  

A typical ESXi boot LUN partition table will look similar to the following:

Device:  /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789
Partition table:
gpt
58361 255 63 937571968
1 64 204863 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128      < --- This is the boot partition
5 208896 8595455 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
6 8597504 16984063 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
7 16986112 268435455 4EB2EA3978554790A79EFAE495E21F8D vmfsl 0
8 268437504 937571934 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0

Usable sectors:
34 937571934