Apologies if I should be starting a new thread for this instead of reusing this one.
I am running into the same issue, using ESXi 5.1 u1 on Dell poweredge R320, using local storage (two disks hardware RAID 1, so ESXi sees a single 500GB disk)
This is a freshly installed ESXi 5.1 with no datastores currently set up. I am trying to create a single VMFS5 datastore that spans all remaining available space so I can start deploying VMs.
Here is my disk layout:
~ # partedUtil getptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6b8ca3a0e6df030019482dcc149c8519
gpt
60734 255 63 975699968
1 64 8191 C12A7328F81F11D2BA4B00A0C93EC93B systemPartition 128
5 8224 520191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
6 520224 1032191 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
7 1032224 1257471 9D27538040AD11DBBF97000C2911D1B8 vmkDiagnostic 0
8 1257504 1843199 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
2 1843200 10229759 EBD0A0A2B9E5443387C068B6B72699C7 linuxNative 0
~ # partedUtil getUsableSectors /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6b8ca3a0e6df030019482dcc149c8519
34 975699934
Looks like partition 3 does not exist in the partition table above, so I am going to pick that as my partition to create. Since partition 2 ends at 10229759, I will pick 10229760 as my starting sector, and from the getUsableSector output above, I will use 975699934 as my ending sector (please let me know if my logic here is incorrect).
~ # partedUtil setptbl /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6b8ca3a0e6df030019482dcc149c8519 gpt "3 10229760 975699934 AA31E0
2A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0"
gpt
0 0 0 0
3 10229760 975699934 AA31E02A400F11DB9590000C2911D1B8 0
Error: Read-only file system during write on /dev/disks/naa.6b8ca3a0e6df030019482dcc149c8519
SetPtableGpt: Unable to commit to disk
I have also tried substituting for "2048" as my starting sectior, as suggested in a previous comment, but received the same error as above. What am I missing?
Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!