Unable to Create New Datastore Due to Corrupted or Inaccessible Storage Device
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Unable to Create New Datastore Due to Corrupted or Inaccessible Storage Device

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Article ID: 415116

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms

  • Unable to create a VMFS datastore from the vSphere Client or Host Client.— the operation did not progress beyond the initialization stage
  • Rescan storage operations fail or take an unusually long time to complete.
  • Host fail to rejoin back to cluster 
  • Virtual machine showing inaccessible. 
  • Affected datastore was showing 0 byte. 
  • VMFS volumes report metadata corruption warnings in /var/log/vmkwarning.log or /var/log/vmksummary.log.

    2025-10-21T01:06:00.599Z Wa (180) vmkwarning: cpu0:2101033) WARNING: FS3: 636: VMFS volume <Datastore-name>/681281af-68c7d235-#####-####### on naa.############:1 has been detected corrupted
    2025-10-21T01:06:36.624Z Wa (180) vmkwarning: cpu0:2101033) WARNING: Fil3: 10590: Found invalid object on 681281af-68c7d235-#####-######### <FD c0 r0> expected <FD c28 r0>
    2025-10-21T01:06:36.624Z Wa(180) vmkwarning: cpu0:2101033) WARNING: FS3: 636: VMFS volume <Datastore name>/681281af-######-####-######## on naa.#############:1 has been detected corrupted
  • ESXi hosts report repeated READ/WRITE command failures (ScsiDeviceIO errors) in /var/log/vmkernel.log.

    2025-10-21T01:32:57.631Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu274:2100454)ScsiDeviceIO: 4619: Cmd(0x45db2c9b1fc0) 0x28, CmdSN 0x1f32de1 from world 3086524 to dev "naa.##############" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0xb 0x44 0x0
    2025-10-21T01:32:57.634Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu274:2100454)ScsiDeviceIO: 4619: Cmd(0x45db2c9b1fc0) 0x28, CmdSN 0x1f32de1 from world 3086524 to dev "naa.##############" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0xb 0x44 0x0
    2025-10-21T01:32:57.637Z In(182) vmkernel: cpu274:2100454)ScsiDeviceIO: 4619: Cmd(0x45cb29563940) 0x28, CmdSN 0x1771 from world 2101307 to dev    "naa.###############" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0xb 0x44 0x0

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0.x

Cause

Due to data corruption on one of the backend storage arrays, all read and write I/O operations directed to the affected datastores began to fail. These repeated I/O failures caused the hostd service on the ESXi host to become overloaded while continuously attempting to process unresponsive I/O requests. As a result, hostd entered a busy state and was unable to perform datastore creation task.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, perform the following steps:

  1. Identify and isolate affected LUNs:
    Review /var/log/vmkernel.log for repeated read/write or SCSI sense key errors on specific device IDs (naa.*).

  2. Validate storage health:
    Engage your storage administrator to check for array-side issues such as LUN corruption, path errors, or controller faults.

  3. Unpresent or unzone the affected LUNs from the ESXi hosts to prevent further access attempts.

  4. Clean up stale devices:

    • Run esxcli storage core adapter rescan --all

    • If rescan fails or stale entries persist, restart management agents using: Restarting Management Agents in ESXi

    • Reboot the affected ESXi hosts if the stale devices still remain after cleanup.

  5. Revalidate connectivity:

    • Perform a rescan after reboot to ensure healthy storage paths are visible.

    • Verify that accessible LUNs are correctly detected.

  6. Create the VMFS datastore on the healthy storage device once the environment stabilizes. Follow steps from the article Create a VMFS Datastore

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