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ESXi Add Storage hangs – loading…

July 26, 2013 10:13 am / dbrooke

This issue describes the following situation, and an easy solution for it:

I bought a brand-new server from Dell, running in R5 configuration (PERC H710) where two partitions were installed by default. The bare-metal ESXi 5.1 hypervisor is also installed by default on an embedded SD module. Upon adding a datastore in the vSphere client, ESXi hangs for one of the partitions (with animated  “Loading…” text), forcing me to restart ESXi.

If this sounds like your issue, read further!

What you need to know is that ESXi doesn’t like one of the default partitions that Dell set up for you and you will need to re-partition some how. There are a couple ways to do this, but I’m going to tell you the easiest one.

The general idea is that you will need to log into ESXi via SSH and use the provided utility ‘partedUtil’ to delete the default partition, so that you can continue to create a new one with your vSphere client. Now, you can go so far as to create the partition while you are in the shell environment as well.. but you likely don’t want to do that because it’s just easier in vSphere, right?

First, enable SSH:

1.) Log into vSphere, and click on your server on the left panel, then click on the ‘configuration’ tab.

2.) Under the “Software” header, select “Security Profile”.

3.) In the content window, on the right of “Services”, select “properties”.

4.) enable both “ESXi Shell” and “SSH” by selecting and clicking on the “Options” button individually.

Now you can log into ESXi manually using your root password that you set up.

*NOTE*, it’s a good idea to turn those services off after you are done.

Next, Delete the stubborn partition!:

1.) Log into ESXi via a shell (If you are not on a linux machine, you can install the free shell app for windows called putty).

2.) Use this Knowledge Base article to list your disks, get partition table information, then delete the troublesome partition:

ESXi partedUtil Knowledge Base

For a summary, here are the abridged steps for ESXi 5.1 (but seriously, use the link above):

a.) List your disks:

ls /vmfs/devices/disks/

b.) Print existing partition table

partedUtil getptbl "/vmfs/devices/disks/DeviceName"

c.) Delete stubborn partition

partedUtil delete "/vmfs/devices/disks/DeviceName" PartitionNumber

Once those steps are done, you should be able to go back to vSphere and complete adding a datastore, and this time, vSphere should not hang while trying to access the partition.

Enjoy!, despite technology.

DISCLAIMER

 

 

Posted in: ESXi, Hypervisor / Tagged: Add Storage, ESXi, Hangs, Loading...

One Thought on “ESXi Add Storage hangs – loading…”

  1. reilogix on September 25, 2013 at 7:59 pm said:

    Thanks a million! Very similar situation for me: Purchased a new Dell T320 in August 2013. I had ESXi 5.1 loaded onto flash by Dell. 1.8TB Raid5 volume on SAS drives. vSphere loads, but hangs upon attempts to create data store.

    I learned I had to specify the user when connecting to my VM host via SSH, as follows:
    ssh 10.0.1.100 -l root

    I followed the instructions, slowly, and tried to verify which drive/partition was which. There were several:

    ~ # ls /vmfs/devices/disks
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:1
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:4
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:5
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:6
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:7
    mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:8
    naa.6b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449
    naa.6b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449:1
    naa.6b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449:2
    t10.DELL____RD1000__________102235N14122052013
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:1
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:4
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:5
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:6
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:7
    vml.0000000000766d68626133323a303a30:8
    vml.01000000003130323233354e313431524431303030
    vml.02000000006b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449504552432048
    vml.02000000006b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449504552432048:1
    vml.02000000006b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449504552432048:2

    At last, I simply deleted partitions 1 and 2 on my “naa.6b8ca3a0eda4e100199f55f11abff449” drive and BOOM, joy. Datastore created, happy I.T. guy. Thanks again! — Peter

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