Always ensure you have a backup strategy for your VMs. Relying solely on the underlying storage hardware integrity is a recipe for disaster. If you are unsure about the partedUtil or hexdump commands, opening a ticket with VMware Support is the safest path to ensure your VMs come back online.
This confirms whether any partition table exists. vmfs partition table missing
Before attempting a fix, try to identify the root cause to prevent recurrence. Always ensure you have a backup strategy for your VMs
This mounts the raw device as read-only if the VMFS metadata is intact. This confirms whether any partition table exists
If you have verified that the LUN is visible but shows no partitions, you can often recreate the table manually using the ESXi command line.
Remember: A missing partition table is not the same as a missing VMFS. The file system metadata resides deeper in the disk, and in many cases, your virtual machines are still intact—just waiting for the right recovery approach.