Unable to read partition information from this disk for ESXI

[persistent]

I have created a new iscsi target on linux machine (Fedora core 7), and successfully able to access the target from Microsoft initiator.

But when I tried to access the same target form ESXI server it gives following error.

"Unable to read partition information from this disk"

please find the details of iscsi target LUN

Device: vmhba33:0:0 capacity: 300GB SAN Identifier: iqn.2001-04.com.example:storage.ESX-STORAGE.sys1.xyz LUN:0

Thanks in Advance for any suggests

[nick_couchman]

Did you go through the process of going to the Configuration -> Storage sections, Add Storage, select Disk/LUN, wiping out all current partition information, etc., so that ESXi can partition the disk and create a VMFS3 filesystem and datastore on it? Is 300GB the size you expect on the disk?

[persistent]

I could able to solve the problem by creating a new partition on iscsi target i.e (Fedora core ) and didn't created any file system on it. Now it successffully got added in the storage of ESXI.

Thanks for your response.

[weinstein5]

If this is the same issue from your other post it is because of the pre-exisiting file systems you had created - just create the LUN with out creating a partition and subsequent file system

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[Nemasis]

I ran across a similar problen where I added a DAS drive for VMs and got the same error. Turned out the issue was that it was a GPT partition table rather than a MBR. ESXi does not recognize the GPT table nor can you boot from the drive. If you mount it to a windows box, disk manager should be able to tell you. If thats the case, then what I did was wipe the drive with zeros, then mount to the ESXi box and proceed as normal. I realized you solved your issue with a workaround but just an FYI.

[wings7351]

Hi, I just installed the lastest vesion got from the download area. I first installed it onto a 80GB SATA disk and it worked fine, I tried to add storage by putting in a 1TB drive, it says unable to read partition information; I got into Windows, removed the old partition, converted from GPT to MBR, still did not work. I then removed this 80GB drive and installed the ESXi directly onto the 1TB drive, all went fine, but now datastorage added; I tried to add it manually, it gave me the same error message.

Can someone give me a hint? I have searched all over google and could not find anything works.

Mine is a Precision 670, SATA controller is ICH5. It does seem to be recognized correctly, I did not set up hardware RAID.

Thanks.

[Nemasis]

I have the exact same box. What I did was use a program to write zeros to the drive as it had been part of win2k3 softRAID. Then when I Installed it and booted the machine, ESXi automatically initialized and formated the drive. You can use Active@ Kill Disk which requires windows, or DBAN Live CD. You only need to write the first part of the drive with zeros as this will wipe out the the MBR and any partition information.

Off topic: Do know what the fastest proc the 670 will support. I believe its the 3600DP Xeon. But Dell spec sheet says it will support dual core procs, altho I haven't been able to confirm.

Nemasis

[wings7351]

Thanks Nemasis. I tried your recommendation and it worked.

However I do not know the CPU support for this model. I tried to look for it and could not find anything. I am also interested to know.

Thanks.