Local Datastore Configured for Scratch Partition Appears Inaccessible in vCenter

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms : 

• vCenter displays the affected local datastore as inaccessible, with free space shown as zero bytes.
  
  
  
• The used space for virtual machines residing on the affected datastore also appears as zero bytes.
  
• Navigating to Host > Configure > Storage Devices and selecting the affected datastore shows the datastore paths as dead.
  
• Attempts to review logs result in Input/Output errors, as the scratch partition is configured on the inaccessible local datastore.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 8.x

Cause

The local datastore became inaccessible due to underlying hardware issues.

Cause validation:

• The iLO interface reports "No drives were found in this system. You may need to reboot the host system to discover them".
  
• The ESXi host relies on ILO for hardware status. As ILO failed to detect the drives, the datastores were marked inaccessible.

Resolution

• Reboot the host from iLO to bring back the drives as suggested by iLO.
• Engage the hardware vendor to investigate the root cause of the missing drives on iLO and assist with a permanent resolution.