I have a bizarre situation, partly of my own making.
I have a 3 node cluster + vCSA (using Essentials Plus license), all on version 7.
During the latest update for vCSA I ran into a problem where the process would loop endlessly. I followed a wrong advice I found on another forum to delete two files from the appliance and now I cannot login on the administrative side of the vCenter (port 5480). I can still administer ESXi (through port 443 on vCSA). To my horror, I discovered that the external NAS drive that I was backing the appliance to has failed, so I don't have a backup for the vCSA.
I am left with rebuilding the vCenter as my only option.
Considering that the old vCenter is still functioning and that I can still access the cluster and all the resources, what is the best way going forward? Should I remove all the hosts, storage, cluster, etc from the old vCenter before firing up the new one? I've never had to do anything like this before.
