Lost Datastore

[PrayerSolanky]

I increased the size of the volume on our iSCSI SAN that ESXi uses for it's datastore. I then tried increasing the size via the datastore properties. This did not work so I rebooted the ESXi host. When it came back up, the datastore was gone. When I go to add storage, it will not allow me to add the original partition, just the free space. Any ideas?

[wdbarker]

esxcfg-volume -M <datastorename> ought to bring it back. Then the datastore expansion process should work. You should do a esxcfg-volume -l first, and make sure ESXi sees what you think the iSCSI is presenting<g>.

Dan, in Atlanta

[PrayerSolanky]

Thanks for the suggestion. I did a esxcfg-volume -l and nothing is presented for the results.

[wdbarker]

Well, if -l doesn't show it, I doubt -M will mount it. In the VIClient, Configuration, Storage Adapters, iSCSI Storage Adapter (at the top), does the iSCSI LUN show (in devices at the bottom)? It seems it must if the Storage Add showed the free space. If you have a path to the storage, and it's not mounted, I've found that to be fixable with the -M. You must have some other issue than what I've seen.

[PrayerSolanky]

Yeah, after exhausting all KB resources I got into the support queue. Thanks.

[Duncan Armstrong]

Is the LUN now larger than 2TB (minus 512B)?

Otherwise if your storage adapters don't even see it, there may have been other presentation changes inadvertently made which need to be looked at. However before you dive too deep there, verify that your iSCSI adapter's BIOS can see the LUN (if using hardware initiators). If you're on a software initiator, it should see it in the list of LUNs.

Other possibilities are pathing plugin issues, but I'm quite sure it should still show up in the storage adapters list first.