Head Extent Device Path?

[darwinmach]

Hi!

I have a brand new installation of ESXi 4. When I try to use vSphere to add a datastore, I get the following error:

"Error during the configuration of the host: Unable to Find Head Extent Device Path"

I'm trying to create a new datastore using a RAID 10 virtual disk on a dell PERC 5/i controller. The raid container is 1.8TB so it's within the 2TB limit.

I've tried searching all over, but not even Google searches turn up anything. Help!

[AndreTheGiant]

Can you see your disk under storage adapters and with fdisk -l command?

Andre

[darwinmach]

Yes, I can see them

[admin]

The error occurs when the platform cannot find the partition you are specifying on the host you're trying to create the datastore on.

*) Verify the disk shows up esxcfg-scsidevs -l and /vmfs/devices/disks

*) do a storage rescan either with the UI or with esxcfg-rescan <vmhbaX>

[darwinmach]

Thanks for your help / pointers - I fixed the problem.

For reference:

1.) fdisk -l produced ouput saying invalid partition table, so I used fdisk to attempt to correct the issue

2.) Anything partition changes I was writing to the disk didn't commit & the invalid partition stuff was still there.

3.) Disabled "Intel VT-d" in the BIOS and everything is working.

Intel VT-d is supposed to be Intel Directed I/O Virtualization - not sure why enabling it causes disk I/O issues on an external controller, but probably something to do with the PCI-e bus.

Hardware: Dell PERC 5/i with LSI Firmware 7.0.1-0066, ASUS Z8NA-D6C Motherboard w/ 0406 BIOS

[dodell]

Did you try to get the onboard SATA drives working with ESX? Just curious. I just purchased this motherboard and was going to install ESX4 to a USB stick.

Thanks.

[dBeau]

At least it's not just me. I have the same board and same controller. I did the install with VT-d turned off. I wanted to play with PCI passthrough and had trouble so I turned VT-d on. Now, ESXi 4 wouldnt boot. Most of the time it would hang loading the VT-d module. Other times it would get further but still not finish the boot.

[darwinmach]

Yes I did, but you cannot use the onboard RAID becuase its a fake raid controller (software enabled, windows only).

Drives plugged in to onboard will show up as individual disks.

[SahilS]

Solution :-  I manage to fix this issue after changing the permission on storage Level .. It was set to read only and i hv change it to Read / Write and it worked!!

Regards

Sahil