Storage corrupt after adding 3 disks and extending VMFS partition

[nicosb]

Hi, I badly need help

Following the instructions given me by a Dell tech support guy I added to a server

(running ESX 3.5 on a raid 5 storage with 5 disks) 3 more disks; using Dell's OMSA

interface I reconfigured the raid to span over the 8 disks and all went fine: virtual

servers were all working properly.

Next -still following his instructions- I telinited 1, ran fdisk and recreated the partitions

in such a manner that they were all unchanged, except the last one tagged 0xfb: I made

it span from the same starting cilynder to the actual last one, then rebooted.

At boot LVM gave a lot of errors sounding like "inaccessible device", and what's worse

is that many virtual disks became inaccessible.

Restoring the original partition table I had exactly the same problem, so the virtual disks are

still inaccessible.

What can I do to

1. recover those virtual disk

2. extend the available space?

Thanks,

Nico

[Texiwill]

Hello,

1. recover those virtual disk

Reinstall and Restore from Backup. The problem is that you changed the LUN geometry, you may be able to restore everything if you can get back to the original partition table BEFORE any changes, but I have never been successful with this.

2. extend the available space?

You can NOT extend a VMFS. THe Dell rep gave you bad information. You can add space by adding Extents but that is NOT the same as extending the VMFS.

I would reinstall ESX with the new size of the VMFS then restore your VMs from backup OR contact your VMware Support Representative and see if they have any tools to help restore the VMFS.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

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[nicosb]

I restored the original partition table, but unfortunately that didn't fix the problem.