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Luke198224
Contributor
Contributor

Use local SATA Disk as Storage for VMs on ESX3i

hello all,

I just setup my ESX3i on my desktop dell optiplex 745.

Installed ESX3i on the USB directly with this manual:

http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/Boot%203i%20from%20USB%20flash%20drive.html

modified the oem.tgz as described here so my local ICH8 SATA controller is recognized.

http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/customize_oem_tgz.php

when i check now with lspci -v, i can see the controller is mounted as vmhba1, but in VI3 i can't see it.

Rescaned, restarted again, set Sata to legacy and back, nothing helped

Do I need to format the drive manually as vmfs so it's recognized by esx?

Any idea?

Thanks

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Your post has been moved to the ESXi forum

Dave Mishchenko

VMware Communities User Moderator

If you run fdisk -l do you see the HD?

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Luke198224
Contributor
Contributor

no, I did not see the disk with fdisk -l

let me paste you the output of both, lspci -v and fdisk -l

LSPCI -v

00:00.00 Host bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation

Class 0600: 8086:2990

00:01.00 PCI bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation

Class 0604: 8086:2991

00:26.00 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:2834

00:26.01 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:2835

00:26.07 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:283a

00:28.00 PCI bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation

Class 0604: 8086:283f

00:28.04 PCI bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation

Class 0604: 8086:2847

00:29.00 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:2830

00:29.01 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:2831

00:29.02 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:2832

00:29.07 USB Controller Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c03: 8086:2836

00:30.00 PCI bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BA/CA/DB/EB PCI Bridge

Class 0604: 8086:244e

00:31.00 ISA bridge Bridge: Intel Corporation

Class 0601: 8086:2810

00:31.02 IDE interface Mass storage controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0101: 8086:2820

00:31.03 SMBus Serial bus controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0c05: 8086:283e

00:31.05 IDE interface Mass storage controller: Intel Corporation

Class 0101: 8086:2825

01:00.00 VGA compatible controller Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc

Class 0300: 1002:9598

01:00.01 : ATI Technologies Inc

Class 0403: 1002:aa20

02:00.00 : Creative Labs

Class 0403: 1102:000b

03:00.00 Ethernet controller Network controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5754 Gigabit Ethernet

Class 0200: 14e4:167a

04:00.00 Ethernet controller Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169

Class 0200: 10ec:8169

I have two onboard SATA controllers. One with 4 ports and one with 2 ports.

Both controllers have hdd connected.

~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:0: 1027 MB, 1027416576 bytes

64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 979 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:1 5 750 763904 5 Extended

/dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:4 * 1 4 4080 4 FAT16 <32M

/dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:5 5 52 49136 6 FAT16

/dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:6 53 100 49136 6 FAT16

/dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:7 101 210 112624 fc VMKcore

/dev/disks/vmhba33:0:0:8 211 750 552944 6 FAT16

what we see here is the USB key only.

Is it correct that I have added the pciid 8086:2820 and 8086:2825 into the oem.tgz?

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Take a look at this thread and what Scottish Captain mentions about the mode of the controller - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1084357#1084357.

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Luke198224
Contributor
Contributor

great,

thanks for the link, it solved my problem.

I have copied the oem.tgz to the usb drive and now I can see my sata Disks

The modified ata_piix driver made it.

Thanks for the help! :smileylaugh:

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