Problems with creating new Virtual Disks in Guest

[ShadowBrain]

4 TB Lun block size is 8mb with 12 guests connecting to it.

2 TB free space

LSI scsi controller

Not sure if this is just something I am doing wrong or an actual bug but when I attempt to add a new disk either hot plug or cold using VIC the disk is successfully added the guest (windows 2003 sp2) but is only visible in device manager on the guest. Drive has no letter and is not visible in disk management. I noticed the driver for the new disk is not complete but i cannot force any other driver. The only driver file loading is c:\windows\system32\drivers\PartMgr.sys

The two other drives already up and running have

c:\windows\system32\drivers\PartMgr.sys

c:\windows\system32\drivers\crcdisk.sys

c:\windows\system32\drivers\disk.sys

Seems like it has to have something to do with the missing driver files but removing and adding only causes windows to auto install the same thing and update driver is not helpful since I can't find the correct .inf anywhere on the system. Help please I am rapidly running out of storage on the second disk and need the new one to pick up the slack.

[Michelle_Laveri]

I take it - even doing a rescan in Disk Management has no affect at all...

Of course, a blank virtual disk will still need partitioning and formating...

Regards

Mike

[ShadowBrain]

Yea rescanning doesn't help and I have tried varying the drive size just for the hell of it with obviously no success there.

[Michelle_Laveri]

This is odd... could it be a window problem. I do this every week and have done for months - and never seen this problem. All I can suggest is used diskpart as way of getting the disk working....

Regards

Mike

[chrisbuzby]

try a local VMFS partition if you have one

[ShadowBrain]

diskpart can't see the disk the only thing that sees the disk is device manager, no other part of the OS and third party software is able to see the disk. A local partition is not an option.

[Michelle_Laveri]

Out of interest does this just affect this VM or ALL VMs on that ESX host?

I have a feeling this is Windows problem - rather than VMware problem...

Regards

Mike

[ShadowBrain]

This issue is affecting every guest on that host, unfortunately i cannot test any other clusters as this host/cluster is separated by hardware differences and the DoD security policy that requires it to be separated.

[chrisbuzby]

Are all your VMs Windows 2003 SP2? Try with a linux host (can always DL an appliance, possibly not an option due to our earlier DoD reference)

[ShadowBrain]

yes they are all Windows 2003 sp2 and no *nix boxes are allowed on the host/cluster.

[ShadowBrain]

So is everyone else as stumped as I am.... this host/cluster can be restarted if necessary as it is only being utilized between 9-5pm EST... HELP!?!?!?

[chrisbuzby]

Maybe try installing a new driver from LSI

[wila]

Are you sure the disk was created successfully? Have you tried adding it to another VM?

As for putting a filesystem on the disk, you could also do this using another VM by temporarily adding it there. It is advised to do this using a VM without any active snapshots.

Message was edited by:

wila

Sorry, sounds i missed this part "This issue is affecting every guest on that host"

[ShadowBrain]

At this point I have confirmed that this is a non issue on the main cluster so I will be migrating this server over there and setting up the drives then bringing it back over to the original cluster. Hopefully this will work as a temporary fix until i can resolve the underlining issue.

[ShadowBrain]

UPDATE:

So I migrated over to the main cluster and added the disk....seemed to work disk manager could see the drive but it kept timing out while trying to set path and/or format the drive. Gave up on it as I was tired and figured I must be forgetting something simple. Come in this morning (the guest was left on and left with the drive "converted" into disk management last night) and its back to the same issue with only Partmgr.sys in the driver and no recognition other then device manager. Now I am just getting frustrated!

[ORRuss]

Are you creating a new controller, or adding the disk to an existing one?

[ShadowBrain]

adding to an existing

[ORRuss]

Will removing the system disk delete the controller, so that when you readd that disk, a new one is created? Not sure, but it might be worth a try.

[ShadowBrain]

Not an option as this is a large production environment in which many of the servers must be up and running 24x7 and a few of them use the same controller.

[ShadowBrain]

I solved the problem by moving the data the server was hosting to another host and just wiping out the server (saves a license at the same time) so This one is done although the cause of the issue is still a mystery.