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nuvola3311
Contributor
Contributor

installation on supermicro server with adaptec 2010s raid controller failed. Unable to find a supported device to write....

I am trying to install VMware ESX server 3i 3.5.0 on a supermicro server with an adaptec 2010s raid controller setup with a raid 5 configuration. The installer does not see the raid controller or a suitable drive to write to.

The error I am getting is:

Installation operation failed!

The installation operation has encountered a fatal error:

Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 image to.

The following system information will assist the VMware support team with your problem. Please record this information before proceeding.

System Information:

Manufacturer: Supermicro

Model: x5dp8

Service Tag: 0123456789

Bios Rev: 6.00

I even tried updating the firmware on the adaptec raid controller but that did not help. I am shocked that there is no built in support for this very industry standard raid controller.

Can anyone assist?

thanks

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6 Replies
ericsl
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Check to see if that card is on the VMware HCL, it's probably not if is is not recognized.

I use SuperMicro boards with Adaptec 5805 and 5804 8 and 4 port cards.

We also use the LSI SAS-3442E which can be used with SAS or SATA drives.

For the LSI SAS it only supports 4 drives without a SAS Expander backplane. With a backplane it supports a whooping 100+ drives...

Eric

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. Can you find out the PCI id for the RAID controller and then compare it with this list?

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nuvola3311
Contributor
Contributor

Using lspci -v in tech support mode shows the following for the raid controller:

RAID bus controller Mass storage controller: Distributed Processing Technology SmartRaid V controller

Class 0104: 1044:a511

This does not seem right as my card is an adaptec 2010s so I don't think it is detecting the card properly. Perhaps I could manually load a different driver that is similar?

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Do you know if the controller uses the same driver as the 2020SA or other Adaptec controllers on the hardware list?

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ChrisKas10
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Dave - does that imply that the Adaptec 2020SA is supported? I've not found it on the HCL, but your post gave me a spot of hope...

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

The 2020SA isn't supported, but should be recognized by ESXi. If you're thinking for production, then I would stick with a model from the HCL. That said, if the 2010 is similar to the 2020, then you might get it to work by customizing oem.tgz - see the article on vm-help.com.

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