ESXi 5.1 lost connection to Datastore, but not to Disk

vmware-esxi

I have lost a Datastore from my ESXi Host. The drive is still accessable, but it does not show up as Datastore (but as device). I can connect to it via SSH and copy data from it (I am getting all the vmdx at the moment, in case the drive dies).

Following issue came up in the log:

Host Connectivity Degraded in ESX/ESXi (1009557)

But it recovered

Host Connectivity Restored (1009556)

I can add it as a new Datastore but I would have to reformat it.

Is there a way to remount the drive so it is detected as a datastore?

It is also shown in the esxcli storage vmfs extent list

esxcli storage vmfs extent list
Volume Name  VMFS UUID                            Extent Number  Device Name                                                                Partition
-----------  -----------------------------------  -------------  -------------------------------------------------------------------------  ---------
datastore1   4cf78219-37a48610-9f53-001b21811bd8              0  t10.ATA_____SAMSUNG_HE502HJ_______________________________S2B6J90ZA08075           3
datastore3   4ea13fa7-6e0b3afc-8741-b8ac6f95a15a              0  t10.ATA_____ST2000DL0012D9VT156__________________________________5YD4J7JA          1
datastore2   4cf7821a-60777308-3711-001b21811bd8              0  t10.ATA_____SAMSUNG_HE502HJ_______________________________S2B6J90ZA08046           3

Update

It reapeared after rescanning the drives, but it had an invalid Size, short after the drive disapeared again. Doesn't look good… but the data transfer via scp still works.

The blocksize of the device changed from 1 MB to 175 MB thuse the change in the device size

Best Answer

According to the vSphere documentation esxcli does indeed have a mount subcommand.

  1. List all volumes that have been detected as snapshots.
    esxcli <conn_options> storage filesystem list
  2. Run esxcli storage filesystem mount with the volume label or volume UUID. By default, the volume is mounted persistently, use --no-persist to mount persistently.
    esxcli <conn_options> storage filesystem volume mount --volume-label=<label>|--volume-uuid=<VMFS-UUID>

So for your case, you can run the following commands to get the VMFS remounted. 

esxcli <conn_options> storage filesystem volume mount --volume-uuid=4cf78219-37a48610-9f53-001b21811bd8
esxcli <conn_options> storage filesystem volume mount --volume-uuid=4ea13fa7-6e0b3afc-8741-b8ac6f95a15a
esxcli <conn_options> storage filesystem volume mount --volume-uuid=4cf7821a-60777308-3711-001b21811bd8
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