Cannot Add Storage To An ESX Host

Information

Title: 

Cannot Add Storage To An ESX Host

Author(s): 

Xtravirt (Paul Davey)

Target Audience: 

Technical - Intermediate

First Published: 

1 March 2009

Products: 

VMware ESX

UID: 

XD10026

SAN Storage can not be added to an ESX host server using the VI Client.

1.0 Overview

This Xtravirt hot tip identifies a problem when storage can not be added to an ESX server.

2.0 Symptoms

When the Add Storage wizard is invoked the available space can not be calculated and the wizard fails. This may occur when re-provisioning SAN storage or through provisioning new SAN storage. The SAN LUN may be deleted and re-created, however, this may not resolve the problem.

This can be caused because the ESX host believes the disk geometrics are incorrect, an existing file format can not be read or the information at the beginning of the disk is in an unknown format.

3.0 Resolution

1. Connect directly to an ESX server console that has been granted access to the SAN LUN by the SAN administrator.
2. Login to the server using the Root account or SU up to root from a local account.
3. Use esxcfg-vmhbadevs –q to list the visible storage devices that can be seen by the ESX server. From the list find the node name for the SAN storage which is having issues. In this example, LUN21 (see figure1) matches up to /dev/sde

4. Use the parted utility to analyze the disk for existing partitions.

5. You can use the parted utility to re-write the the label allocated to the disk. This will destroy any existing partition information on the disk. To do this, use the mklabel utility to change the partition table type to MS-DOS, by entering mklabel msdos. Then use the print command to display the new partition information for the disk. Typing Quit will exit the parted utility.

6. Logout of the console session and launch the VI Client. When an attempt is made to add the storage, the available space is now correctly displayed and the disk can be added and formatted successfully.

References

References: 

1. Troubleshooting a “Unable read partition information from this disk error” in the Add Storage wizard, http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008886

Links: 

1. Nil