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Cannot format hard disk with VMFS5 after removing it from RAID array

by · 23. April 2014

Today I tried to install the new NexentaStor 4.0.1 on my x3650 M2 with local harddisks. To get the best performance my plan was to pass-through all local disks to the VM. For that I had to remove all RAID arrays that are currently configured across my 8 internal drives. After deleting the RAID arrays I started the host. When my host was up and running I tried to format one of the disks an got the following error message.

Call “HostDatastoreSystem.QueryVmfsDatastoreCreateOptions” for object “ha-datastoresystem” on ESXi “xxx.xxx.xxx.xx″ failed.

I have done this with several other disks and it looked like that only 3 had the problem. I enabled SSH and connected to the host.
There i used this command to list all the available devices:

ls -lha /vmfs/devices/disks/

This was the shortened output
formatvmfsfailed_01
As you can see there is a partition on the disks I couldn’t format.
The following command had shown me some information about the device.

partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.5000c50023397a33

This was the output:
Error: The primary GPT table states that the backup GPT is located beyond the end of disk. This may happen if the disk has shrunk or partition table is corrupted. Fix, by writing backup table at the end? This will also fix the last usable sector appropriately as per the new reduced size. diskPath (/dev/disks/naa.5000c50023397a33) diskSize (286748000) AlternateLBA (570310655) LastUsableLBA (570310622)
Warning: The available space to /dev/disks/naa.5000c50023397a33 appears to have shrunk. This may happen if the disk size has reduced. The space has been reduced by (283562656 blocks). You can fix the GPT to correct the available space or continue with the current settings ? This will also move the backup table at the end if it is not at the end already. diskSize (286748000) AlternateLBA (570310655) LastUsableLBA (570310622) NewLastUsableLBA (286747966)
Error: Can’t have a partition outside the disk!
Unable to read partition table for device /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.5000c50023397a33
It looks like that after deleting the RAID array not all VMFS partition table information was deleted too, so I had to clear it manually.
To do this simply create a normal msdos partition on the affected disks with this command:

partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.5000c50023397a33 msdos

After setting a new partition I was able to format the disk with VMFS5.
 
 

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  4. HP MicroServer Gen8 – A short Overview

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25 Responses

  1. SARAVANAN says:
    15. October 2014 at 00:33

    Thanks. Helped me to resolve my issue. It worked.

    Reply
  2. Björn says:
    15. December 2014 at 21:16

    Thanks, that did it! 🙂

    Reply
  3. andy says:
    20. December 2014 at 15:35

    Perfect !! You are great. Worked completely.

    Reply
  4. Robert says:
    14. February 2015 at 15:51

    Hey thanks a million for publishing this. I have spent over 3 hours trying to get this working before coming across your article.

    Reply
  5. Teun says:
    17. May 2015 at 22:11

    Thanks you saved me from a restless night 🙂

    Reply
  6. Paa says:
    9. July 2015 at 03:29

    It helps me to resolve the some issue with ESXi 6.0.0 and a HP Proliant ML310e Gen8 v2 with RAID 1
     
     

    Reply
  7. Albert says:
    10. July 2015 at 08:46

    It works. Thank you so much!

    Reply
  8. Carlos Martinez says:
    22. July 2015 at 21:35

    Funcionó a la perfección, Muchas gracias

    Reply
  9. Diogo Nascimento says:
    1. August 2015 at 00:27

    Man you awesome! Save my day.

    Reply
  10. Dean says:
    2. September 2015 at 22:40

    This worked a charm on my HP MicroServer Gen8 G1610T! Thanks very much!

    Reply
  11. reza says:
    9. September 2015 at 14:25

    perfect, it work. many thanks

    Reply
  12. Jas says:
    26. October 2015 at 01:54

    Thanks a lot for helpful post. It resolved my issue.

    Reply
  13. Cong says:
    22. December 2015 at 04:01

    Awsome, it’s worked ! Thanks so much 😉

    Reply
  14. ALI says:
    8. March 2016 at 07:41

    great piece of information … well done

    Reply
  15. Vahric says:
    7. December 2016 at 10:20

    First i found how to down console at the installation time
    Then first i used partedUtil
    And thanks for such solution no need to play with multiple live cd , thanks  Manfred

    Reply
  16. EOS says:
    30. April 2017 at 18:24

    Nice. This worked for me . Thanks 🙂

    Reply
  17. Robert says:
    25. January 2018 at 00:31

    Thank you, I had an ssd setup as a dell perc h700 cachecade as I wanted to see what difference it made but after playing thought I’d rather just have the ssd as this is only a esxi box for labs. Couldn’t get the drive to add as a datastore even tried diskparted.

    Reply
  18. Dennis Lankhuijzen says:
    28. January 2018 at 23:02

    Thanks! Worked for me….

    Reply
  19. Brian Lavoie says:
    14. February 2020 at 20:13

    I spent several hours working with VMware enterprise support and they came to the conclusion that i would need to pull the drives and wipe them using another server. This command fixed it instantly. Thank you so much!

    Reply
  20. Christoffer Tigerström says:
    26. October 2020 at 19:32

    Har liknande problem när jag ska installera ESXi 6.7 på en HP Server. vart skriver jag partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.5000c50023397a33 msdos ?

    Reply

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