Stuck at Remounting Root File system read-write mode

[allenflopc]

HI

Running ESX 3. ESX is installed on it's own disks. Created 2 other disks on local storage on 2 different RAID arrays. I have several virtual machines running on one of the RAID arrays.

I realized that I had accientally formatted one of the disks as a RAID0 instead of a RAID5. I DID NOT disconnect the storage before bring the ESX server down and reinitialized the drives as a RAID5 using the Dell RAID controller software.

Upon reboot, the server hangs during boot at "Remounting root file system read-write mode"

I assume it is looking for the storage that it was using prior to my reinitialization. What do I need to do to tell it that the storage it is no longer there so I can get ESX to boot? I realize I probably should have disconneced the storage before making changes to the disk.

I'm not much of a Unix guy but I can get around. May need a little detail on command though.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thank You

[eveane]

Hi allenflopc,

can you post a screen shot of the error you are getting.

also can you try to boot for a linux live cd (ubuntu latest version will do) and open a console (terminal):

-type sudo fdisk -lu and post the output we shoud be able to see how the partitoning of your disk is done and detected any issue tehre.

-typesudo cat /etc/fstab

-for each partition from the fdsik output which were showing type ext3 or 83 do

-sudo mkdir /mnt/part<X>

-sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sda<X> /mnt/part<X>

-post the result of ls -al /mnt/part<X>

here i suspecrt there is a corruption due to teh rebuilding process. esx will redected all the disk each time it will reload the storage driver. so it seesm the disk where you had your system is no longer holding the information expected ( due to corruption, disk id changed, detected order changed....)

regards

eveane

[harryc]

try boot -sw that will bring many UNIX systems up to single user Writable, you can then edit out the entry in /etc/fstab

( looking at my systems not all the VMWare entries are here maybee someone else knows where they are on ESX ).