A VMFS datastore is not accessible after a power outage

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• After a power outage in the environment, a VMFS datastore is not accessible to ESXi hosts
• The datastore is not mounted on ESXi host reboot
• The host is connected to storage and the devices are seen correctly under storage devices.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi (all versions)

Cause

This arises if the LUN backing the datastore has lost its partition table. 

 

This can be confirmed by running:

partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.################################

Sample, output for a datastore with partition intact:
partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.################################
gpt
52216 255 63 838860800
1 2048 838850039 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0

Sample, output for a datastore with partition missing:
partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.################################
gpt
52216 255 63 838860800

Additionally, there may be state locks on the vmfs volumes due to the power outage.

Resolution

Please open a ticket with Broadcom support.