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3 Replies Last post: Sep 3, 2008 7:31 PM by palmertime  

problem booting with more than 1 SATA Disk posted: Sep 3, 2008 4:34 PM

Click to view palmertime's profile Novice
palmertime
6 posts since
Sep 3, 2008


After trying to get ESXi 3.5 update 2-110271 to boot from USB, i found that it will boot and work correctly if the system has 1 disk connected to the SATA Controller. The controller is supposedly supported and no modification was done to oem.tgz. The system has 4 disks connected to an intel 4 port Sata controller (ICH9) but freezes, while loading module ata_piix, if more than one is connected.

Controller:

82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 4 port SATA IDE Controller

Any ideas?

Let me know if more info should be posted!

Re: problem booting with more than 1 SATA Disk

1. Sep 3, 2008 4:45 PM in response to: palmertime
Click to view Dave.Mishchenko's profile Guru User Moderators vExpert
Dave.Mishchen…
9,151 posts since
Nov 15, 2005
What mode do you have the controller set to in the BIOS?

Re: problem booting with more than 1 SATA Disk

2. Sep 3, 2008 4:51 PM in response to: Dave.Mishchen…
Click to view palmertime's profile Novice
palmertime
6 posts since
Sep 3, 2008
The system is a Dell poweredge t300 and there are only 2 bios settings, off or ata mode. Off, i can boot up no problems but with no drives. ATA mode, i can only boot when the first drive is connected. No RAID, IDE legacy or any other options.

Re: problem booting with more than 1 SATA Disk

3. Sep 3, 2008 7:31 PM in response to: palmertime
Click to view palmertime's profile Novice
palmertime
6 posts since
Sep 3, 2008

Finally got it up and running! It turned out that the partitions from prior installs was causing the problem. Deleting partitions didn't seem to help but writing zero's to the drives with 'dd' did the trick!


All 4 250GB disks are now visible.


Thanks,
Michael

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