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Article ID: 341581
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Updated On:
Environment
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
Cause
SAN policy has been introduced in Windows Server 2008 to protect shared disks accessed by multiple servers. The first time the VM sees the disk, it'll be offline, but after being brought online once it should be online even after a reboot.
By default Windows machines will have the SAN policy set to be "Offline Shared", thus irrespective of the ESXi or hardware version you may see this issue.