Delete or remove VMFS / VMFS3 partition or slice

I’m running VMware ESX Server 3.0.0 build 27701.  This was installed by a colleague who in a flurry of default settings and next clicks has built the server with two VMFS partitions.  There are two logical disks (arrays) in this machine one of which is small (80Gb) and contains the ESX installation and a 60Gb VMFS partition.  The other is huge and will contain all VM’s etc.  The plan in that the 60Gb VMFS partition will be EXT3 and can be used as a conversion dumping ground with the vmkfstools utility.

Through the VI client if I try to remove the 60Gb VMFS partition I get the following error;

“Error during the configuration of the host: Unable to remove the datastore: can’t delete partition 3 on lun vmhba0:0:0”

I was thinking about unmounting it as a trial so to speak and found another forum posting which discussed removal and recreation of VMFS partitions.  The other article saw a mount called vmimages whereas when I check the mount table I don’t have anything pertaining to the VMFS partitions, equally nothing exists in /etc/fstab pertaining to VMFS partitions.  Do these not get mounted in my version of ESX?

Does the problem of not being able to delete this partition relate to the fact it was the first created VMFS partition during install?  If I browse this datastore I can see just five hidden files;

.fbb.sf

.fdc.sf

.pbc.sf

.sbc.sf

.vh.sf

I could use fdisk to blow the partition away but am loathed to do this without understanding the consequences and being reassured they won’t be drastic.

Any advice on this or similar experiences much appreciated.