Datastore missing after cloning disk to another server

[uvdevnull]

ESXi 7.0.3 running fine on a server. It has a single RAID1 mirror that ESXi is installed on as well as the single datastore is located on it. Controller is the LSI/Avago/Broadcom MegaRAID.

I cloned the disk and installed in another server with the same kind of controller. ESXi boots fine. However, the VMs show "invalid" and the vmfs volume is listed in text in front of the folders where the VMs are located.

There is no Datastore, no Devices besides the CD drive, no MegaRAID adapter. All of which can be seen in the original server UI.

Perhaps the controller is not exactly the same, just named similarly? Maybe the lsi_mr3 driver doesn't work with this controller and I need to install some third party driver? New controller is Avago MegaRAID SAS 9361-4i while the old one, at least a decade old is LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i

During boot, there is an unusually long pause after "nfs41client loaded successfully" and before "swapobj loaded successfully". Several minutes pause, to the point where I thought it was gonna fail.

Screenshots attached "new1-4" of the new cloned server and "old1-4" of the existing/working server.

[maksym007]

How many hard drives at all are on the server? 

Which are for ESXi ? and which are for Datastore configured? which RAID levels? 

you gave a lot of information but were still not clear everything

[compdigit44]

So if I understand things correctly, you cloned the ESXi disk and datastore from one server and installed it in another correct?

If so, I believe this would not work since hosts have GUID's I believe and the new host would have a different GUID hence why VM's and datastore are not seen.

Would be better to do a clean install and migrate VM's.

[uvdevnull]

@maksym007 

Two physical disks, appearing as just a single drive. RAID1 mirror. It hosts both the ESXi and Datastore.

[uvdevnull]

@compdigit44 

I would normally do that but the purpose of this project is to troubleshoot an issue offline. I don't want to do it on the live server since that's in production so I figure cloning it would be ideal so I can troubleshoot offline. Perhaps I will later determine that the ESXi install is faulty somehow in which case I would install it fresh from scratch and migrate the VMs onto it but I have not determined that yet.

[uvdevnull]

ping

[uvdevnull]

ping

[jmartinez13]

Hi, 

I get same issue after cloning the disk.  I solve the issue entering by ssh to esx and mounting manually the vmfs.

esxcli storage vmfs snapshot list  -> Get UUID

esxcli storage storage vmfs snapshot mount -u <UUID> -> mount the vmfs

esxcli storage filesystem list -> show datstore mounted.

Hope it help you.