Inaccessible guests from SAN

[SteckelBuddy]

I added a second HBA into one of our 2 ESX 3.5 standard servers. Following this, the volumes were not accessible. That was solved by another post by changing the EnableResignature under the advanced configuration and I could once again see the volume (and renamed to original--probably not good). Unfortunately, all of the previous guests show as (inaccessible) in the client. I tried right-click on the server name and choose relocate server files, but that doesn't work. Does anyone know how I can re-add these back in? I temporarily added as "new" hosts to another ESX server, but didn't realize that'd create a duplicate. Don't want to move mess anything else up so looking for guidance. This is my first week of ESX...finally made the jump from the free server version.

[jamieorth · Accepted solution]

If you browse the datastore can you see the vm files/folders? If so you can import the vm's in question. Look for the servername.vmx file - right click and choose "Add to Inventory". You might want to give them a different name in VC, verify everything is working, and then delete the old ones (right click on the vm in question - remove from inventory)

Regards...

Jamie

Remember, if it's not one thing, it's your mother...

[SteckelBuddy]

Oh- Perfect. That seems too easy. Figured there had to be a way to do that but couldn't find it! Thanks! Is it possible to add a server to inventory on two different machines concurrently- for manual failover such as in this case (at least until I have VC and VMotion running?)

[jamieorth]

No, becuase then you would have two hosts trying to access one set of data files. Well, I take that back. You couldn't have them both running at the same time, but if the ESX hosts have access to the same datastores it is possible, but you wouldn't want to do it.

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Regards...

Jamie

Remember, if it's not one thing, it's your mother...

[aidinbaran]

Hi,

I am experiencing the same issue but when I right-click on the .VMX files the Add to Inventory option is grayed out.

Any suggestions please?