ESXi 6 expired, Datastore is gone. Can I get my datastore back?

[megajeff11]

We installed ESXi 6.0 free version about 6 months ago, and all was working well until i logged into it and it says your license had expired.  I assumed we we're using a free one, but apparently not. So I looked at the ESXi 6.0 page and saw there is a license key for the free version. I installed the key but my datastore is still MIA. The drive I had used will not show up in the storage section. What can I do? I had some important VMs on there.

[douglasarcidino]

Can you reboot your host and make sure that the disk drive is still visible by the storage controller? Or look in the vsphere client, navigate to configuration and health status. Do you see anything under storage?

What about in the stage adapters area of under the controller?

If you see this, hit the rescan all button in the top right of the client or post a screen grab to show us what is under there. You may have to add the storage back but did you reinstall and in any way accidentally delete the VMFS volume?

Doug Arcidino

[megajeff11]

No, for some reason it wont detect the drive anymore. I tried adding another drive just to see what would happen and it doesnt show up in the devices section. The drive i used before was just a SATA drive but for some reason after the expired BS, i can't add sata drives.

Thanks for the quick reply btw

[douglasarcidino]

At that point, I would check the BIOS to make sure it can see the drive. Second, I would reinstall with the option to not format VMFS volumes. That should build a new 60 trial key and wipe out your old config.

[megajeff11]

To your first post, in the Health Status section, I have no Storage Adapters listed. How do I add a SATA adapter?

[douglasarcidino]

What HBAs do you have listed? It looks like it isn't seeing your storage adapter at all.

[megajeff11]

So I changed the sata to auto and I find one of my datastore hard drives, but it has nothing on it except a folder called sdd sf with nothing in it.