VMWare Error: Read-only file system during write on

Question

I tried hundreds of forums and posts, but nothing seem to help!

I have vSphere ESXi 5.5. and when starting ESXi the first time it created and formatted a storage automatically.

For some reason I removed it and now I cannot get my disks/storage back! No problem if I need to reformat but even that is impossible !

I tried to reuse it, to format it, whatever possible, but nothing is working:

The only message I get is : Error: Read-only file system during write on /dev/disks/naa.(...) !

For example :

# partedUtil mklabel /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1 msdos
Error: Read-only file system during write on /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1
WriteNewPtable: Unable to commit to device /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1
partedUtil delete partition gives the same message.

partedUtil setptbl gives the same message.

fdisk (delete, new partitions, write) is of no use.

# partedUtil  getptbl /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1
gpt
1215155 255 63 19521474560
1 63 8386622 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
2 8386623 13629502 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0

Really, after trying more than 30 hours, I don't know anymore what to do ?

Any help would be very much appreciated...

Denis

P. S. ESXi 5.5.0 P. P. S. The message in the GUI is Appel "HostDatastoreSystem.CreateVmfsDatastore" pour l'objet "ha-datastoresystem" sur ESXi "172.16.1.244" a échoué

Solution

Finally I found a solution, thank to communities.vmware.com.

Maybe this solved only 50% of the cause of the problem, but at least access to the disk can be regained.

# esxcli system coredump partition get
Active: naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1:2
Configured: naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1:2

We see that this coredump partition is using our disk. This is what I did :

# esxcli system coredump partition set --enable false
# partedUtil delete /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1 2

It's now a lot better :

# partedUtil getptbl /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1
gpt
1215155 255 63 19521474560
1 63 8386622 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0

But it's not 100% solved :

# partedUtil delete /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1 1
Error: Read-only file system during write on /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1
Unable to delete partition 1 from device /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1

But then, by unactivating that partition, I was able to recreate a coredump partition on the disk from the GUI and then recreate a storage.

Now, this is not clean as initially (some small holes and strangely coredump at the end) but I would say the problem is solved:

# partedUtil getptbl /dev/disks/naa.600605b009a647b01c5ed73926b7ede1
gpt
1215155 255 63 19521474560
1 63 8386622 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
3 8388608 19521267711 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 vmfs 0
2 19521267712 19521472511 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0

Comments

[GregL]

Is this local storage or is it over iSCSI/FC?

[db_ch]

local RAID SATA or SAS disks

[GregL]

Is the host in a cluster?

[db_ch]

host is not in a cluster. Finally I found 50% of the problem cause : coredump partition.

[GregL]

Is this the only disk in the server? If so, then that first partition might be the ESXi system area, which would make sense why it won't let you delete it

[db_ch]

No there is another disk (USB stick) with VMware boot/system disk.