ESX 3.5 Build 64607 - "Unable to read partition information from this disk."

[COS]

Does ESX 3.5 support the HP SAS HBA P600 512MB and the MSA 70 SAS drive cage?

I ask because ESX can see the disk/LUN on the MSA 70 but it comes up with "Unable to read partition information from this disk."

Thanks

[troberts]

Try to write zeros to the beginning of the disk. There may be something there we don't like.

run the following command from the service console. replace "?" with the proper block device letter. Be sure you have this correct.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd? bs=1024k count=50

[kirkafrey]

I am having the same issue but none of the fixes listed in this and other threads work. How can I work to troubleshoot this more to come to a resolution?

[COS]

I was fortunate that this was occuring during the install of ESX so I just rebooted and it finally installed.

Now why would one need to write zero's to a new disk? Wouldn't ESX need to be able to see/get to/use the disk before you can run the command to write zero's to it? Just kind of sounds bassackwards.

[kirkafrey]

Thanks, glad this worked out for you. Its not for me :(.

Anyone had any luck figuring out a fix? I've tried all the options in the posts with related topics to no avail...

[kirkafrey]

So, for anyone else that might be having a similar issue I rebuilt both the array and the host, patched to current and put the hos tin maintenance mode and it worked fine. I am not 100% sure that I did all of that at any one given time in my multiple attempts previously so I may just have missed one of those steps (I know I didnt patch to current so that may have been it).

Hope someone else doesnt have to go thru all the grief I went thru!

[mike_laspina]

Hi,

For future reference the HP P600 Smart Array controller is on the official support list.

Thanks for posting the fix.