Unable to Create Datastore on Partitioned Drive

[TopHatProductio]

I'll hop straight to the point. I have ESXi 6.5 U3 installed to a HDD on my server, because I don't have enough thumb drives to spare for the server to have a dedicated one, and my budget is pretty tight at the moment. I used most of it to make sure I'd have a functioning server and spare parts, in case anything went up during initial setup. I want to use the remaining free space on said drive for a datastore (which will hold ISO's and other important materials), and an currently trying to create it via SSH. Here are the materials I have read through thus far:

• VMware Knowledge Base - Identifying disks in ESX/ESXi
• VMware Knowledge Base - Using the partedUtil command
• VMware Knowledge Base - Manually creating a VMFS volumes with vmkfstools
• https://serverfault.com/questions/959224/i-cant-create-a-datastore-in-esxi-6-7-u1
• https://darkglade.com/2019/07/05/building-a-datastore-on-your-esxi-boot-usb/

Here is what I've tried in SSH so far:

clear
esxcli storage core path list
ls /dev/disks/
*The first command lists device/LUN paths.*
*The second lists devices and partitions.*
*I must match results from ^^^^ to find the drive with partitions 1/5/6/7/8 defined.*
*In my case, it's naa.600508b1001c5dd0b075505fceb1e350 - time to dump a parition table...*
partedUtil getptbl /dev/disks/naa.600508b1001c5dd0b075505fceb1e350
*In the output, the second line is misc data about the disk in question.*
*I need two numbers:*
*the last number of the 2nd line, which is the last sector of the disk*
*the 3rd column of the last line, which is 1 minus the start sector - gotta add 1*
*My data:*
gpt
17844 255 63 286677120
1 64 8191 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128
5 8224 520191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
6 520224 1032191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
7 1032224 1257471 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
8 1257504 1843199 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
9 1843200 7086079 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
2 7086080 15472639 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
3 15472640 286677086 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0
*END_DATA*
*Numbers of interest: 286677120, 286677086*
*"Note the AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 - this is a fixed string denoting VMFS volumes so you will have to use the same."*
*Time to attempt repartitioning. We'll use 4, since that partition doesn't already exist...*
partedUtil add /dev/disks/naa.600508b1001c5dd0b075505fceb1e350 gpt "4 286677087 286677120 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0"
*failed - the 'add' option does not exist*
partedUtil set "/dev/disks/naa.600508b1001c5dd0b075505fceb1e350" "4 286677087 286677120 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0"
*failed - "Invalid Partition information"*

Is the following line:

• 3 15472640 286677086 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0

the vmfs partition that i should be focusing on, rather than trying to create yet another one by hand? Do I only need to do something like:

• vmkfstools -C vmfs6 -S ISO_Store /dev/disks/naa.600508b1001c5dd0b075505fceb1e350:3

To have the datastore that I want? Just curious...

Message was edited by: TopHat Productions115 Removed redundant commands, copy+paste error

[TopHatProductio · Accepted solution]

It looks as though ESXi 6.5 had already prepped the free space for use, by making it vmfs from the start. In most other tutorials online, they assume that the free space isn't already in this form. So, that step was possibly already handled for me. I went on and tested the following command:

• vmkfstools -C vmfs6 -S ISO_Store /dev/disks/naa.600508b1001c5dd0b075505fceb1e350:3

And it looks like that worked. I think I can use the remaining space on my drive for ISO's and other important materials now, which would be nice. Now to move on to the next issue...