I have multiple hosts where we setup a 3GB volume on the SAN to install ESXi 4.1, which used up about 1GB for the install and then the rest was used for a vmfs for scratch.
After the upgrade to ESXi 5 it didn't mount that scratch vmfs.When trying to reformat it, I get an error:
Either the selected disk already has a VMFS datastore or the host cannot perform a partition table conversion. Select another disk.
fdisk from the cli shows:
Disk /dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dab: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3072 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp1 5 900 917504 5 Extended
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp2 901 3072 2224128 fb VMFS
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp4 * 1 4 4080 4 FAT16 <32M
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp5 5 254 255984 6 FAT16
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp6 255 504 255984 6 FAT16
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp7 505 614 112624 fc VMKcore
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp8 615 900 292848 6 FAT16
So p2 is the 2.12GB vmfs. Is there anyway to get it mounted again? "esxcli storage vmfs snapshot list" does not list it as a snapshot.
Ok, found something more:
/var/log # grep 50002ac002c30dab vmkernel.log
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)ScsiDeviceIO: 5843: QErr is correctly set to 0x0 for device naa.50002ac002c30dab.
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)ScsiDeviceIO: 6340: Could not detect setting of sitpua for device naa.50002ac002c30dab. Error Not supported.
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)3parvaai:INFO Device naa.50002ac002c30dab (3PARdata:VV )
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)3parvaai:INFO device(naa.50002ac002c30dab) attribute is set to 0xd
Ok, answering my own question 🙂
I reformated it this way:
/var/log # vmkfstools -C vmfs5 /dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dab\:2
VMFS5 file system creation is deprecated on a BIOS/MBR partition on device 'naa.50002ac002c30dab:2'
Checking if remote hosts are using this device as a valid file system. This may take a few seconds...
Creating vmfs5 file system on "naa.50002ac002c30dab:2" with blockSize 1048576 and volume label "none".
Successfully created new volume: 4f75271e-63939b80-ddcc-e4115beb3630