Accepted Solutions
You have to thank Edward Haletky, not me 
In the VMware Communities his nick is .
Andre
Thanks for your help. After searching, I finally came upon some instructions that worked and it ended up being pretty easy. I lifted the following and pasted it here for others. I also uploaded the PDF they mention although their version of the instructions worked great. Whew!!!
|
| |||
Recovering VMFS partitions with VMware ESX troubleshootingEdward Haletky, Contributor 02.19.2009 Rating: --- (out of 5)
| ||||
| ||||
| http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http%3A%2F%2FsearchVMware%2Etechtarget%2Ecom%2Ftip%2F0%2C289483%2...VMFSpartitionswithVMwareESXtroubleshooting&topic=tech_news&bodytext=Reinstalling%20servers%20is%20a%20common%20task%20for%20system%20administrators%2C%20but%20when%20a%20typical%20process%20goes%20awry%2C%20it%20can%20wreak%20havoc%2E%20In%20this%20two%2Dpart%20series%20on%20troubleshooting%20VMware%20ESX%2C%20a%20VMware%20expert%20mistakenly%20deletes%20additional%20partitions%20that%20show%20up%20after%20he%20performed%20a%20VMware%20Consolidated%20Backup%20proxy%20host%20reinstall%2C%20which%20nearly%20destroys%20the%20Virtual%20Machine%20File%20System%20and%20RDM%20data%2E] Digg This!\ | http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2FsearchVMware%2Etechtarget%2Ecom%2Ftip%2F0%2C28948...VMFSpartitionswithVMwareESXtroubleshooting] StumbleUpon\ | http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2FsearchVMware%2Etechtarget%2Ecom%2Ftip%2...VMFSpartitionswithVMwareESXtroubleshooting] Del.icio.us\ | http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=http://rss.techtarget.com/520.xml] |
[Enterprise IT tips and expert advice\
[Digg This!\
[StumbleUpon\
[Del.icio.us\
+In the course of reinstalling a VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) proxy host, our expert encountered two problems that can be major headaches for accessing files and data in the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS). First, he deleted partitions from his ESX logical unit numbers (LUNs), which could have meant losing access to all data in the VMFS. The following article features his workaround to that problem. He then discovered he couldn't restore virtual raw device mapping (RDM) in the same way, which also meant potentially losing a massive amount of valuable historical data. Part two of this series features his workaround to that issue.
+ As a VMware expert, I am supposed to know that I should disconnect my storage area network (SAN) from a server before reinstalling the server. The server in question was a backup host instead of an ESX host, so I mistakenly thought that Windows would disconnect the SAN. Deleting mystery partitions is a bad idea After the reinstall, my server had more partitions than before the reinstall. Without too much thought, I deleted them -- bad idea. The partitions I deleted happened to be those used by my VMware ESX LUNs. So if I were to reboot my ESX servers, they would permanently lose access to their data. At this point, I knew that the prior day at least one part of the irreplaceable data had been backed up and taken off-site. But I still needed to restore the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) and raw device mapping (RDM). VMware ESX troubleshooting 101: Check the VMware ESX hosts The first step in troubleshooting a VMware ESX problem is checking the ESX hosts. I discovered that the virtual machines (VMs) were still running. Apparently, ESX is robust enough to continue operation without its physical partitions. Since ESX was still running, and wanting to discover the damage, I went to the service console and ran the command fdisk -l. I ended up with a lot of blank partitions, as you can see in this file\ (click on link to see text). I expected to see something like this\ instead (click on link to see text). The difference between the two was that the first three partitions (highlighted in the second file) were missing. Restoring the VMFS After some research and some help from the tech folks who follow me on Twitter\, I discovered a link to a presentation on . The PDF proved invaluable. To summarize the information in that document, to restore the VMFS you need to use the command fdisk to rebuild the partition table. Then move the start block to the proper alignment. Then refresh and re-scan to access the partitions. Using fdisk, however, can be dangerous and requires caution. Instructions for using fdisk:
This is what those instructions translated into for /dev/sda and /dev/sdc within my ESX host's service console:
I tested my handiwork by rebooting the single ESX host that wasn't running any VMs and rescanned its LUNs. Thankfully, the VMFS had been successfully restored. |
|
You have to thank Edward Haletky, not me
In the VMware Communities his nick is .
Andre
