Deleting an unmounted datastore fails with the error “Unable to find a partition with the name”

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to delete an unmounted datastore, the following error occurred and the operation failed:
  An error occurred during host configuration: Operation failed, diagnostics report: Unable to find a partition with the name naa.################################:1: Not found: VSI node (1919:VSI_NODE_storage_scsifw_devices_partitions_info)
  
  
• The datastore is currently Inaccessible.
  
  
• esxcfg-mpath -b command showing all device paths are deat/Unavailable.

naa.################################ : PURE iSCSI Disk (naa.################################)
   vmhba64:C#:T0:L1 LUN:1 state:dead iscsi Adapter: Unavailable Target: Unavailable
   vmhba64:C#:T0:L1 LUN:1 state:dead iscsi Adapter: Unavailable Target: Unavailable
   vmhba64:C#:T0:L1 LUN:1 state:dead iscsi Adapter: Unavailable Target: Unavailable
   vmhba64:C#:T0:L1 LUN:1 state:dead iscsi Adapter: Unavailable Target: Unavailable

Environment

VMware ESXi

Cause

If the storage device (LUN) has already been deleted, the datastore deletion will fail.

Resolution

Perform Rescan Storage to refresh the storage device and datastore information.
Performing a rescan of the storage on an ESXi host