Found solution:   https://community.hortonworks.com/questions/7455/namenode-can-not-be-started.html   Found this error in the namenode logs : /var/logs/hadoop/, the error was Failed to load image from FSImageFile(file=/var/lib/hadoop-hdfs/cache/hdfs/dfs/name/current/fsimage_****, cpktTxId=0000000000000425183)   Went to the mentioned location and deleted the FS image which was 0 Bytes, see above link. Restarted the namenode and datanodes and everythings works as expected.   Thanks! ... View more