Change SCSI Bus Sharing from Virtual to None

[mmcclurg]

I have a VM that used to be clustered with another VM.  The other VM has since been deleted and the cluster pieces removed.  I'm unable to extend a drive (A general system error occurred:  Unknown error).  I assume it is due to the SCSI bus sharing option, as I can add a drive without the error.  If I change the setting from virtual to none, then the drives do not show up in Disk Management.

What is the proper method to change the setting so I am able to extend drives?

[lakshya32]

Could you please share the aam_config_util_addnode.log

[mmcclurg]

Where is this log in ESXi 5.1 U2?  I looked in /var/log/VMware/aam, but I don't see an aam directory

[mmcclurg]

Anyone?

[madhusudhanan]

Let me try to understand your problem first

~ I hope you had enabled the SCSI bus sharing option and were using some common virtual disks to simultaneously get access across few VM's, and all those VM's were in the same server since its virtual sharing mode , am i right ?

~ Further you are trying to change the SCSI sharing option from virtual to none and trying to extend the drive within the VM GOS.

I hope you are not sharing a Boot disk SCSI0 since the possibility of data corruption whenever someone accidently shares the boot disk,

You need to use an eagerzeroedthick-disk for the VM Boot Disk

hope you consistent in the SCSI adapters types

What is the GOS type you are using ?

[madhusudhanan]

Some More additional points that you can check with

• Do not try to share a disk among multiple running virtual machines that are not collocated on the same host. The disk file itself may be located remotely, but the virtual machines must be running together on the same ESX Server host. If you try to share a disk among virtual machines located on different hosts, data could be corrupted or lost.

• Do not share a disk on SCSI bus 0. This bus is usually used for the boot disk. If you share the boot disk, you run the risk of corrupting it, as the boot program is not aware that the disk is being shared and can write to the disk regardless of whether or not it is being shared. It is far more secure to use SCSI reservation on a data disk located on a different bus.

• If only one running virtual machine is using a given disk, and it is running applications that do not use SCSI reservation, then the disk's performance might be degraded slightly.

• At this time, if one virtual machine does not have SCSI reservation enabled for its virtual disk, but another virtual machine does have SCSI reservation enabled for the same virtual disk, ESX Server does allow the disk to be shared. However, any virtual machine not configured for SCSI reservation that tries to access this disk concurrently can cause corruption or data loss on the shared disk. VMware recommends you take care when sharing disks.

• If you need to shrink or defragment the virtual disk (which can be done only with a growable virtual disk), first disable SCSI reservation and make sure the virtual disk is not being used by any other virtual machine.

To disable SCSI reservation for all SCSI disks in a virtual machine, open the configuration file and comment out or remove the scsi<x>.sharedBus = "virtual" line and make sure the disk.locking line is set to "true".

If you want to disable SCSI reservation for only a specific SCSI disk on a shared bus, change the scsi<x>:<y>.shared = "true" line in the configuration file to scsi<x>:<y>.shared = "false"; you can also comment out the line.

• In a Windows virtual machine, some disk errors are recorded in the Windows event log in normal operation. These error messages have a format similar to
  "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Scsi\BusLogic3"

[mmcclurg]

- Correct.  I had two VMs, both 2008 R2, utilizing Microsoft Clustering.  I followed VMware's guide to MSCS.  I kept both VMs on the same physical host.

- Correct.  I want to change the SCSI bus sharing option from virtual to none and have the ability to extend the drives.  There are two SCSI controllers, both are set to virtual.

- The boot disk is set to SCSI Controller 0, but is not shared with any other VMs.  In fact, none of the drives are now shared.  The boot drives of both were not given the ability to share are were separate from each other.

- Both SCSI controllers are LSI Logic.

- GOS?  I assume guest operating system.  It's 2008 R2.

[mmcclurg]

I'll summarize, none of the disks are being shared.

Changing SCSI bus sharing from virtual to none doesn't make those changes to the .vmx file?  If they do, won't I see the same issues as I do now?  I'll clone this VM to a lab and test your suggestion.