Datastore Inaccessible

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms: 

In vCenter devices displayed as not consumed.

The output of the partedUtil command against the device in question gives the below output which indicates VMFS partition table is missing.

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

gpt
52216 255 63 838860800
The output for partedUtil command against the device returns "unknown"

partedUtil getptbl  /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.################################
unknown
802048 255 63 12884901888

 
The output for a regular working VMFS datastore instance would be as follows: 

gpt
52216 255 63 838860800
1 2048 838850039 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0

Environment

6.x

7.x

8.x.

Cause

This issue occurs because when a datastore is deleted via the vSphere Client, the underlying VMFS partition may also be erased, leading to potential data loss.

Resolution

To address this issue, please contact Broadcom support by opening a Service Request (SR) to determine whether the partition table can be repaired

Additional Information

Using partedUtil command line disk partitioning utility on ESXi