topic Re: ESXi 5.0 after upgrade can't mount the previous ESXi 4 scratch partition in ESXi Discussions

ESXi 5.0 after upgrade can't mount the previous ESXi 4 scratch partition

uzimmermann — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 03:15:31 GMT

I have multiple hosts where we setup a 3GB volume on the SAN to install ESXi 4.1, which used up about 1GB for the install and then the rest was used for a vmfs for scratch.

After the upgrade to ESXi 5 it didn't mount that scratch vmfs.When trying to reformat it, I get an error:

Either the selected disk already has a VMFS datastore or the host cannot perform a partition table conversion. Select another disk.

fdisk from the cli shows:

Disk /dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dab: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3072 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

                           Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks Id System
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp1             5       900    917504    5 Extended
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp2           901      3072   2224128   fb VMFS
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp4   *         1         4      4080    4 FAT16 <32M
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp5             5       254    255984    6 FAT16
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp6           255       504    255984    6 FAT16
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp7           505       614    112624   fc VMKcore
/dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dabp8           615       900    292848    6 FAT16

So p2 is the 2.12GB vmfs. Is there anyway to get it mounted again? "esxcli storage vmfs snapshot list" does not list it as a snapshot.

Re: ESXi 5.0 after upgrade can't mount the previous ESXi 4 scratch partition

uzimmermann — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 03:18:21 GMT

Ok, found something more:

/var/log # grep 50002ac002c30dab vmkernel.log
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)ScsiDeviceIO: 5843: QErr is correctly set to 0x0 for device naa.50002ac002c30dab.
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)ScsiDeviceIO: 6340: Could not detect setting of sitpua for device naa.50002ac002c30dab. Error Not supported.
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)3parvaai:INFO Device naa.50002ac002c30dab (3PARdata:VV )
2012-03-30T03:01:45.483Z cpu12:4739)3parvaai:INFO device(naa.50002ac002c30dab) attribute is set to 0xd

Re: ESXi 5.0 after upgrade can't mount the previous ESXi 4 scratch partition

uzimmermann — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 03:25:38 GMT

Ok, answering my own question

I reformated it this way:

/var/log # vmkfstools -C vmfs5 /dev/disks/naa.50002ac002c30dab\:2
VMFS5 file system creation is deprecated on a BIOS/MBR partition on device 'naa.50002ac002c30dab:2'
Checking if remote hosts are using this device as a valid file system. This may take a few seconds...
Creating vmfs5 file system on "naa.50002ac002c30dab:2" with blockSize 1048576 and volume label "none".
Successfully created new volume: 4f75271e-63939b80-ddcc-e4115beb3630