Mount s.v00 file

[mveras1972]

I have an ESXi 5.5 host stuck with all my hardware in passthrough mode, so it cannot find the datastore. The ESXi OS boots up and in the ESXi GUI client from my Windows machine, I can disable passthrough, but upon reboot it all goes back to passthrough again. So I tried to edit the esx.conf file that is in the ESX host OS image using SSH, set it all to "vmkernel" instead of "passthrough" but the same thing happens: It all goes back to passthrough after reboot.

So the last resort I have is to grab the s.v00 image from the 250MB FAT partition where the ESX OS image resides, mount the image on another machine, edit the esx.conf file offline and then let it boot.

I can't find any info on opening/mounting the s.v00 image file. Any ideas?

[bluefirestorm]

Based on your previous post Unable to disable passthrough ESXi 5.5 , it would look as though you mistakenly enabled passthrough for the Intel SATA controller to which the disk(s) of the datastore is attached. Two Intel USB 2.0 controllers and one ASMedia USB 3.0 controllers were also enabled for passthrough.

What I suggest is to remove the lines in red. These lines don't appear for a storage device that is not enabled for passthrough. You can also remove the other devices if you choose to.  Or you could experiment first by removing the lines related to the 1 of the 3 USB controllers. Back up the esxi.conf though because it might end up in an unbootable/unusable state; so it is up to you if you want to try this.

You can use Alt+F1 to get to the ESXi console instead of through SSH just for convenience sake (assuming you have physical access to the console and ESXi console access is enabled).

Intel SATA/AHCI controller

/device/000:000:31.2/owner = "vmkernel" 

/device/000:000:31.2/device = "1e02" 

/device/000:000:31.2/vmkname = "vmhba0" 

/device/000:000:31.2/vendor = "8086" 

Intel USB 2.0 controller

/device/000:000:29.0/owner = "vmkernel" 

/device/000:000:29.0/device = "1e26" 

/device/000:000:29.0/vendor = "8086" 

ASMedia USB 3.0 Controller

/device/000:001:00.0/owner = "vmkernel" 

/device/000:001:00.0/device = "1142" 

/device/000:001:00.0/vendor = "1b21" 

Intel USB 2.0 controller

/device/000:000:26.0/owner = "vmkernel" 

/device/000:000:26.0/device = "1e2d" 

/device/000:000:26.0/vendor = "8086" 

Network card

/device/000:000:25.0/vmkname = "vmnic0"

[mveras1972]

My problem is mainly due to the inability to to make the changes to esx.conf persist after reboot. So yes, you are correct, I mistakenly enabled passthough for the Intel SATA controller which is where the datastore is attached. So thanks for catching that and for your suggestions. I will remove the red lines as you indicated and we'll see what happens, but before I do that, I am going to try the suggestion you indicated in the other thread How to disable ESXi Passthrough my findings. I had forgotten I created that thread in my desperation to get this fixed. While I have edited the esx.conf endless times and rebooted to no avail, I have not tried editing it offline using a live boot CD which was my intention now trying to get the s.v00 file mounted.

Also, I am not able to use ALT+F1 to get to the ESXi console because all USB ports are set to passthrough and so ESXi is not using them, which means any keyboard I attach to the computer does not work. I am forced to use SSH in that respect. Thanks and I will keep you posted.

[mveras1972]

I followed the procedure in Re: How to disable ESXi Passthrough my findings but resulted in a purple screen. However, I was able to recover by copying the state.tgz from /dev/sda6 to /dev/sda5 and all is well now. I posted what I did in more detail in that thread. Thank you so much.

It sounds like removing the red lines as you indicated could've been a solution but I never got to try it. The reason I say that is because the esx.conf inside the state.tgz in the /dev/sda6 didn't have the Intel SATA/AHCI listed in that section. It only had the ASMedia USB 3.0 Controller with the owner set to passthrough so I left that alone because that's the way I want that controller.

So after I booted up ESXi, I just had to rescan for datastores and then readd my VMs to inventory and now they are all up and running. Thanks for all your suggestions. This has been a learning experience!