OSDATA Partition Detection Errors During VCF Deployment.

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

• When deploying or performing host validation checks in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) , the process fails with the following error:
  
  Cannot find OSDATA partition on ESX Host <hostname>

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x
• VMware ESXi 9.x

Cause

The VCF 9.x deployment validation logic uses a strict string-matching requirement for the OSDATA volume. The precheck script specifically looks for a volume name that begins with the prefix "OSDATA-".

If the partition was created manually (e.g., using a custom volume name) or migrated using older procedures that do not apply this specific naming convention, the VCF installer will fail to discover the partition, resulting in a false-negative validation result.

Resolution

1. To resolve this issue, create the OSDATA partition using the ESXi system-managed naming convention.
2. Locate the device identifier (naa ID) for the local disk intended to host the OSDATA partition (e.g., naa.6cc167###########################fe16b).
   To find the naa ID, refer to Identifying disks when working with VMware ESXi
   
   
3. Create the compliant OSDATA partition:  Connect to the affected ESXi host via SSH and execute the following command:
       Warning: The --clearpartitions flag will remove all existing partitions on the specified disk. Ensure no critical data resides on the target disk before proceeding.
   
   

   esxcli storage osdata create -d <device_id> -m max --clearpartitions

   Replace <device_id> with your actual disk ID identified in Step 1.
   
   
4. Verify the new volume name: List the local filesystems to confirm the volume now adheres to the required naming convention
   
   

   esxcli storage filesystem list

5. The output should display a volume with a name similar to: /vmfs/volumes/OSDATA-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.
6. Retry Validation: Return to the VCF Installer UI and restart the validation task.