Add a New Hard Disk VMWARE Without Rebooting Guest

It is possible to add or remove a SCSI device explicitly, or to re-scan an entire SCSI bus without rebooting a running Linux VM guest.

1) Add a New Disk To Vm Guest

• First, you need to add hard disk by visiting vmware hardware settings menu.
  Click on VM > Settings

• Alternatively you can press CTRL + D to bring settings dialog box.

• Click on Add+ to add new hardware to guest:

• Select hardware type Hard disk and click on Next

• Select create a new virtual disk and click on Next

• Set virtual disk type to SCSI and click on Next

• Set maximum disk size as per your requirements and click on Next

• Finally, set file location and click on Finish.

2) Rescan the SCSI Bus to Add a SCSI Device Without rebooting the VM

A rescan can be issued by typing the following command:

echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host#/scan
fdisk -l
tail -f /var/log/message

Replace host# with actual value such as host0. You can find scsi_host value using the following command:

# ls /sys/class/scsi_host

Output:

host0

Now type the following to send a rescan request:

echo "- - -" > /sys/class/scsi_host/host0/scan
fdisk -l
tail -f /var/log/message

3) Format a New Disk

You can create partition using fdisk and format it using mkfs.ext3 command:

# fdisk /dev/sdc
# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc3

4) Create a Mount Point And Update /etc/fstab

# mkdir /disk3

Open /etc/fstab file, enter:

# vi /etc/fstab

Append as follows:

/dev/sdc3               /disk3           ext3    defaults        1 2

Save and close the file.