Virtual machine disks show 0 MB capacity with "Some of the disks of the virtual machine <name> failed to load" warning

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The virtual machine remains operational but displays a high-priority alert: "Some of the disks of the virtual machine failed to load. The information present for them in the virtual machine configuration may be incomplete."
• When reviewing the virtual machine's Edit Settings menu, one or more hard disks display a capacity of 0 MB
• Snapshot hierarchy may be invisible or snapshot removal tasks may have recently failed
• The VM directory contains remnant snapshot files that were not properly consolidated.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 
VMware vSphere ESXi 

Cause

The ESXi host service (hostd) manages a virtual machine as a singular object. If any dependent component—such as an orphaned snapshot disk, a corrupted configuration file, or an ISO located on a disconnected datastore—becomes inaccessible, hostd fails to refresh the disk properties. This failure to enumerate the disk layout correctly leads to the 0 MB display and triggers the configuration warning.

Resolution

To clear the stale management state and refresh the disk properties, perform a migration of the virtual machine.

1. Perform a vMotion Migration:
   • Right-click the affected VM and select Migrate.
   • Choose Change compute resource only (vMotion) or Change storage only (Storage vMotion).
   • Complete the migration to a different host or datastore.
2. Verify Disk State:
   • Once the migration is complete, right-click the VM and select Edit Settings.
   • Confirm that the hard disk capacities are now correctly reflected (no longer 0 MB).
3. Consolidate Snapshots:
   • If the warning persists or if there are orphaned files, right-click the VM and navigate to Snapshots > Consolidate.

Note: Executing a migration forces the source ESXi host to release stale file locks and initiates a fresh registration on the destination host. This process forces hostd to re-read the configuration files an

Note: Executing a migration forces the source ESXi host to release stale file locks and initiates a fresh registration on the destination host. This process forces hostd to re-read the configuration files and clears the invalid load state.

 

If the above steps and both knowledge article links below do not resolve the issue, open a case with Broadcom support . Contact Broadcom support

Additional Information

"Some of the disks of the virtual machine failed to load" after an unsuccessful backup operation

Error: "Some of the disks of the virtual machine <name> failed to load. The information present for them in the virtual machine configuration may be incomplete" when attempting to create a snapshot