ESXI Upgrade Fails on Local Disk with error "No Boot Partition Found"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• During an upgrade of an ESXI host to version 8.x, the installation fails with an error indicating that the boot partition cannot be located.

• When executing the upgrade via the command line interface:

  [root@hostname:~] esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore>/ISO/<ISO-name>
  

  The following error output is observed:

  [InstallationError]
  
   Failed to update bootloader: /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001################: no boot partition found
         cause = /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001################: no boot partition found
         vibs = ['VMware_bootbank_esx-base_8.0.x-0.xx.xxxxxxxx']
  
   Please refer to the log file for more details.

   

• Checking the partition table details using partedUtil returns an error stating that the backup GPT is located beyond the end of the disk:
  
  

  [root@hostname:~] partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001################
  
  Error: Function not implemented during read on /dev/disks/naa.600508b1001################
  
  Error: The primary GPT table states that the backup GPT is located beyond the end of disk. This may happen if the disk has shrunk or partition table is corrupted. Fix, by writing backup table at the end? This will also fix the last usable sector appropriately as per the new reduced size. diskPath (/dev/disks/naa.600508b1001################) diskSize (3125562032) AlternateLBA (3125627567) LastUsableLBA (3125627534)

 

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

This issue occurs because the local disk containing the ESXI OS data partition is incorrectly detected as a snapshot volume due to GUID Partition Table (GPT) corruption. This logical structure mismatch is triggered by physical hardware degradation or an underlying storage component fault, as verified by accompanying SCSI sense codes and fatal IPMI hardware events.

• The /var/log/vmkernel.log file confirms that the local device is incorrectly detected as a snapshot volume:
  
  

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.885Z cpu11:2097739)LVM: 12010: Device naa.600508b1001################:7 detected to be a snapshot:
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.885Z cpu11:2097739)LVM: 12016: queried disk ID: <type 2, len 22, lun 1, devType 0, scsi 0, h(id) 7530761399156158480>
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.885Z cpu11:2097739)LVM: 12023: on-disk disk ID: <type 1, len 26, lun 0, devType 0, scsi 0, h(id) 6696608301660212001>
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.885Z cpu11:2097739)LVM: 12035: Device naa.600508b1001################:7 detected to be an OSDATA datastore

 

• The /var/log/vmkernel.log file also contains entries indicating partition corruption and SCSI command failures:
  
  

  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.132Z cpu1:2098300)WARNING: HPP: HppThrottleLogForDevice:1136: Cmd 0x28 (0x45ba5c6bd1c8, 32316820) to dev "naa.600508b1001################" on path "vmhba0:C1:T0:L1" Failed:
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.132Z cpu1:2098300)WARNING: HPP: HppThrottleLogForDevice:1144: Error status H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x21 0x0. hppAction = 1
  
  YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.132Z cpu1:2098300)ScsiDeviceIO: 4167: Cmd(0x45ba5c6bd1c8) 0x28, CmdSN 0x1a from world 32316820 to dev "naa.600508b1001################" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x21 0x0

 

• IPMI System Event Log (SEL) events from the time the disk was mounted indicate hardware level degradation:
  
  

  Record Id: ##
  When: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS
  Event Type: 7 (Fatal/NonRecoverable)
  SEL Type: 2 (System Event)
  Message: Assert + Chassis Transition to Non-critical from OK
  Sensor Number: ###

Resolution

To resolve this issue, the physical infrastructure faults must be addressed before software reinstallation can succeed:

• The affected ESXi host must be placed into Maintenance Mode to ensure all virtual machines are migrated to alternative hosts.
  
  
• The hardware vendor must be contacted to perform comprehensive diagnostics at hardware level.
  
  
• Faulty or degraded physical storage hardware components must be replaced as identified by the hardware vendor diagnostics.
  
  
• Once the hardware environment is stabilized, a clean installation of ESXI 8.x must be performed on the remediated local storage volume.