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02/12/2009 at 01:31PM PST, ID: 24139073
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9.0

VMWare ESX using datastore on Windows 2003 Services for Unix SFU cannot format NTFS or FAT partitions.

Asked by ShopLiftin in Unix Networking, VMware, Server Applications

Tags: VMWare ESX Windows Server 2003 SFU Services For Unix Hangs

The setup:
DL360 G4p with E500 PCIx SAS Controller + MSA60
This is Windows 2003 SP2 (fully updated) with Services for Unix installed and configured

DL360 G4p with VMWare ESX 3.5 installed and configured.

I setup 2 RAID5 logical drives on the MSA and created 1 folder on each and configured the folder with NFS sharing.

I configured on a VMKernel NIC 2 NFS ESX datastores for hosting Virtual Machines.

I have created several test guest OS's (All Windows Server 2003) so far, but none have completed successfully. (The SFU logs all show enormous amounts of successful reads and writes by the ESX host).

I'm not thinking it's permissions because all of the VM files are on the Windows NFS shares, all appropriately sized.

It's right when I try to format the partition in 2003 setup (for the guest OS) that it hangs at 20% if I use NTFS quick, 100% if I use NTFS Full Format, but it does hang right there.   It seems very odd to hang at that point.  I have created a test Windows 2003 guest OS on the local datastore on the ESX server without issue.

I thought it may have been the MSA60 and the E500, but I also tried to configure a guest OS on the Smart Array 6i, the main RAID 0.  But it's the same issue.  The NFS shows up, the files get created on the Windows box in the shared NFS folder.  I can make some changes, such as creating the partitions in the VMDK, those changes do persist past a reboot, I can delete the partitions, those changes persist past a reboot.

It's only formatting that I cannot get past, either quick or full.

I use the NFS datastore model on my EMC Celerra NS20 without issue, but that is native NFS.  Any ideas?
[+][-]02/12/09 06:42 PM, ID: 23629310

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[+][-]02/13/09 05:55 AM, ID: 23632585

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[+][-]02/13/09 06:05 AM, ID: 23632688

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About this solution

Zones: Unix Networking, VMware, Server Applications
Tags: VMWare ESX Windows Server 2003 SFU Services For Unix Hangs
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Solution Provided By: paulsolov
Participating Experts: 1
Solution Grade: B
 
 
[+][-]02/13/09 07:57 AM, ID: 23633873

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