Host Stops Unexpectedly at Bootup When Sharing a Boot Disk with Another Host

When more than one host, either physical or virtual, boots from the same shared physical disk or LUN, they cannot use the same scratch partition.

Problem

The host stops at bootup when sharing a boot disk with another host.

Cause

More than one ESXi host can share the same physical disk or LUN. When two such hosts also have the same scratch partition configured, either of the hosts can fail at bootup.

Solution

1. Set the hosts to boot sequentially, and boot the hosts.
   This setting lets you start the hosts so that you can change the scratch partition for one of them.
2. From the vSphere Web Client, connect to the vCenter Server.
3. Select the host in the inventory.
4. Click the Manage tab.
5. Click Settings.
6. Under System, select Advanced System Settings.
7. Select ScratchConfig.
   The ScratchConfig.CurrentScratchLocation text box shows the current location of the scratch partition.
8. In the ScratchConfig.ConfiguredScratchLocation text box, enter a directory path that is unique for this host.
   For example, /vmfs/volumes/DatastoreUUID/DatastoreFolder.
9. Reboot the host for the changes to take effect.