>> I feel that until I correct this at RHEL level, there's little to be done from within the VMWare world - or am I off beam here?
Yes - I think so.
Please attack this problem from ESXi :
post result of partedUtil.
If no partitions are listed - search for the VMFS-signature.
Or - to save us both a lot of time - give me a download for the 1536 Mb dump
Ulli