Invalid Configuration for Device '0' - Resizing VMware Hard Disk

Hi Friends,

Got a weird one for you.  I needed to revert my environment back from a snapshot which worked great, but unfortunately anything I had done since the snapshot was gone.  The main thing was resizing my vCenter server's hard drive because I was running out of space.  This is one of the coolest features, I just go and edit the setting of my vCenter virtual machine, add some space, go into Windows 2008 R2 and extend the volume!  I LOVE technology!!  But that's not why I'm writing this article.  I'm writing it because something broke down in the process and I'm sharing my pain/learnings with you.

So I go into the vCenter "edit settings", increase the size of the drive and WHAMO, "Invalid Configuration for Device '0'"  Hey, you just worked a little while ago, what gives?!

I know, I'll look on the Internet, the Internet knows all!

WHAT?!  No answer?  Oh sure, there's other folks that got the "Invalid Configuration for Device '0'" error, but not for resizing their hard drive.   Hmmm, well, maybe one of the other articles has a clue.  So I took a look at this VMware Knowledge Base article where you get this error if you try enabling a NIC.  Not the same, but maybe the same culprit.

One of the work arounds was to restart the ESXi Management agents.  Okay, how do I do that?  I know, the Internet knows all!

A quick search and found this VMware Knowledge Base article which you how to restart the services!

I opted for the SSH route:

/etc/init.d/hostd restart
and
/etc/init.d/vpxa restart

At first I got the same error message and then it worked!  So if you get this error message, maybe try restarting your management agents.

Until Next Time!
-Brain