vmkfstools -V --config /scratch/config Or more directly:
voma -m vmfs -f /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6001234567890 This tool is a lifesaver. It will scan the entire device for VMFS structures and report the found start LBA, block size, and file system version. If your disk uses GPT (most modern VMFS5/6), the primary GPT header at LBA 1 might be corrupt, but a backup GPT header resides at the last sector of the disk. vmfs partition table recovery
When that partition table gets corrupted or deleted, ESXi sees the raw disk as a blank, unpartitioned device. However, the actual VMFS filesystem metadata (heartbeats, file descriptors, block pointers) lives inside the partition, untouched. When that partition table gets corrupted or deleted,
No recovery method replaces a verified backup. Use this knowledge to survive the crisis, then immediately double-check your 3-2-1 backup strategy. Use this knowledge to survive the crisis, then
This post is a deep dive into recovering a lost or corrupted VMFS partition table. I’ll cover theory, common causes, diagnostic tools, and step-by-step recovery procedures. A VMFS datastore lives inside a primary partition (type 0xFB for VMFS3 or 0xFC for VMFS5/6) on a disk or LUN. The partition table (usually GPT, sometimes MBR on older systems) sits at the very beginning of the disk (LBA 0) and contains a small entry pointing to the start sector and length of that VMFS partition.
dd if=/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6001234567890 bs=512 count=1 skip=END_SECTOR_NUMBER | hexdump -C | grep "EFI PART" But skip math is error-prone. Instead, use partedUtil :