Problem when add a new raid group to an exist ESXI system (datastore missing)

[wayne_L]

Hi, I have a DELL R720 server at hand with the following components: one SSD hard drive (bootable disk, ESXI6.5 installed) and one 4TB spinning disk, no RAID controller configured at very beginning; To upgrade this server, I added 6 new SAS hard disks and a RAID controller to this server. I grouped these 6 new disks as a virtual disk by RAID 5, and then I had to add two individual RAID 0 groups for the two former disks (seems like the RAID card takes over the boot config; cannot boot the server if no RAID 0 group for the SSD disk). Then the server works and run ESXI system successfully. But all VMs installed are shown as invalid (vCenter cannot work) and NO Datastore is listed in the storage tab.

Then when I tried to "Create new VMFS datastore", the message "The entire contents of this disk are about to be erased and replaced with the specified configuration, are you sure?" will be shown up. I want to keep the entire data stored in the former disks. Is there any other method to mount the disks?

Thanks in advance!

[ThompsG · Accepted solution]

Hi wayne_L and welcome to the community!

Run the following to see if it can be mounted:

esxcli storage vmfs snapshot list

Then to mount run the following:

esxcli storage filesystem volume mount --volume-label=<label>|--volume-uuid=<VMFS-UUID>

Kind regards.

[wayne_L]

Actually, when I typed the command line listed above to mount, I received the message "BrokenPipeError [Errno 32] Broken pipe". Then I google search a little bit about this method and found the following command:

# esxcli storage vmfs snapshot moutn -l <volume-label-name>

Then all VMs in the former disks of the server are back.

Thank you so much ThompsG​ !

[ThompsG]

Hi wayne_L,

Ooops sorry for the mistype there but glad that you spotted it and managed to make it work anyway.

Have a great day!.

[gbanta001]

I ran the following

esxcli storage vmfs snapshot mount -l <Volume Name>