So just to preface, I dont l want to intrude.My data is not vauable this is purley a learning experience.

I work IT and have SOME experience, but I am very much and the begining of Vmware journy. As I am starting to roll out VM deploys a, I like to break my labs and restore them.. so I can fix issues for my clients. Its the only way I know how to learn

Ive run into an issue which I am unable to solve:

I have a proliant dl380 gen 7 running RAID 5 on a P410i RAID controller. The disks are all 900gb HP 2.5inch SAS drives (not that it matters).

I decided to move these drives and replace them with SSD's in order to pass them through the controller, apparrently this is possible only if I wipe the drives (hba mode not available) - when I went to return the SAS drives, I found I had forgotten the order.

I did not think much of that, and when prompted, I launched the array utlity iso and managed somewhat to get the original RAID 5 to be shown.

I was not prompted to rebuild the array however it did tell me that I may incur some dataloss as the drives where not in the exact order? I cant remembe the exact errorr to be honest.

Launching into ESXI 7, I found the datastores where not seen, and I saw a new error about the scratch folder, something about it not being configured (I wish I could remember).

So, I thought it would be best to reinstall, I wiped the SD card and upgraded to ESXI 8.

I have found the VMFS partition, and there is reference to the "Main volume" when running:

[root@localhost:/dev/disks] offset="128 2048"; for dev in `esxcfg-scsidevs -l | grep "Console Device:" | awk {'print $3'}`; do disk=$dev; echo $disk; partedUtil getptbl $disk; { for i in `echo $offset`; do echo "Checking offset found at $i:"; hexdump -n4
-s $((0x100000+(512*$i))) $disk; hexdump -n4 -s $((0x1300000+(512*$i))) $disk; hexdump -C -n 128 -s $((0x130001d + (512*$i))) $disk; done; } | grep -B 1 -A 5 d00d; echo "---------------------"; done
/vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
gpt
3740 255 63 60088320
1 64 204863 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128
5 208896 2306047 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
6 2308096 4405247 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
7 4407296 60088286 4EB2EA3978554790A79EFAE495E21F8D vmfsl 0
---------------------
/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001c1bf8a053590733375ffb
gpt
656623 255 63 10548655152
1 2048 10548652032 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0
Checking offset found at 2048:
0200000 d00d c001
0200004
1400000 f15e 2fab
1400004
0140001d 4d 61 69 6e 20 56 6f 6c 75 6d 65 00 00 00 00 00 |Main Volume.....|
0140002d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
---------------------
/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.600508b1001c2863757871ad9c529fbf
unknown
486397 255 63 7813971632
---------------------

My understanding is, the parition looks healthy? Though, I am still unable to find the datastores.

Looking at the raw data, it seems to be intact, at the very least I can parse bits and peices of information like this:

Sorry for the spam, but gives you an idea of what I mean:

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���:����NJ`�NJ`�NJ`��dmdf�� ��:��R�`PQU�D�:�<�q@�Z�NJ`�NJ`�NJ`�Zdmdf��`�h�p�x������������������������������������ �(�0�8�@�H�P�`�h�p�x������������������������������������ �(�0�8�@�H�P�X�`�h�p�x������������������������������������ �(�0�@��:��n �:�R�`PQU�D�:�<�� �`
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����:��%@� t��Ut��Ut��U�dmdf@GI����:��Z&���K��UK��UX��U��dmdf�.
| - .sdd.sf
| - Server 2022
| - ISO
| - .locker
| | - cache
| | | - loadESX
| | - tmp
| | - core
| | - var
| | | - tmp
| | - vmware
| | | - lifecycle
| | - downloads
| | - log
| | - store
| | - locker
| | | - packages
| | | | - var
| | | | | - db
| | | | | | - locker
| | | | | | | - addons
| | | | | | | - vibs
| | | | | | | - reservedVibs
| | | | | | | - bulletins
| | | | | | | - solutions
| | | | | | | - baseimages
| | | | | | | - manifests
| | | | | | | - reservedComponents
| | | | | | | - profiles
| | - vdtc
| | - healthd
| - vmkdump
| - *redacted* 2.0
| - VPN Server
| - ezpz
| - Docker Experiments
| - macback
| - pfSense
| - testing
| - Backup's
| - webserver
| - RC test
| - mac
| - Proxmox Backup
| - mac2
| - macOS
| - DNS
| - PROXMOX BACKUP SERVER
| - Windows 10 Enterprise
| - VPN client
| - omv
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I hope I'm missing something really dumb, like a command to force scan for datastores..

things that I've tried:

• mounting via vmfs6-fuse with live debian 11 environment - it complains about a bad magic number which is far above my paygrade.

•  ran testdisk, got to 1% after an hour and decided my time is better spent posting this

More than happy to try anything, keen to document my findings even If I fail - for myself and those learning.

Pls ignore if people actuallyneed help this is not urgent at all

Cheers goodnight -

Nathan