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How can I unmount the datastore and delete the VMFS partition

I am in the process of configuring a 2-Node vSAN cluster and Witness Appliance. The drives on the hosts previously had VMs attached. I have moved all the VMs off the host. I have stopped the SCSI IO traffic. When I try to unmount the datastore the host is attached to, I get an error saying the file system is busy.

Research indicates the way to address this issue is to change the ScratchConfigurationLocation.

When I try to change the location in Advanced Setting I receive a unsupported/invalid parameter error. I have tried to do the change by PTTY into the host directly. The commands seem to work but when I reboot the system and check in the vSphere Client the original location (.locker) is still in place.

Ultimately I need to unmount the datastore and delete the VMFS partition so I can add the storage to my 2 Node vSAN cluster.

Please advise.

Lipotech

Bobby Batts

ASKER

Ultimately, I need to unmount the datastore and delete the VMFS partition so I can add the storage to my 2 Node vSAN cluster.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

Can you move the scratch location to a temporary LUN (shared storage)

Bobby Batts

ASKER

I was able to move the scratch, but now there is a .sdd.sf folder in the datastore that is blocking me from unmounting the datastore. How can I remove this folder?

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

You don't remove them, they are the scsi device description, VMFS overhead.

Does it fail to unmount now ?

Did you try delete ?

(make sure there is nothing you require).

Bobby Batts

ASKER

It fails to unmount. I did try to delete them but it wont allow me.

Bobby Batts

ASKER

I have also tried to delete the datastore without success.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

does it give a reason why ? it does unmount

Bobby Batts

ASKER

give me a minute and I will let you know the error

Bobby Batts

ASKER

file system is busy correct the problem and retry

Bobby Batts

ASKER

unmount and delete give the same error message

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

does not mean anything really.

What type of datastore ? RAID, single disk etc

Is this a Lab server, or production ? or going to be reworked ?

because you could just remove the disk, because you'll want to wipe the disk, using dban before using in a vSAN

Bobby Batts

ASKER

This is a development environment
The datastore is a VMFS

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

pull out the disk, and erase using dban.

Bobby Batts

ASKER

can you provide steps to pull out disk

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Bobby Batts

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