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libove
Contributor
Contributor

Dell Precision T3400, ESXi, something else, or forget virtualization?

Hi,

I just purchased a Dell Precision T3400 workstation, and upgraded its default Core 2 Duo E4600 (no hardware virtualization support) CPU to a Core 2 Quad Q6600 to have plenty of CPU power and Intel's hardware virtualization support. I have this crazy idea of running a real virtual platform on the hardware, supporting a workstation image, a server image, and maybe even a home theatre / media center image. This hardware certainly has more power than my existing three such machines combined!

But... ESXi 3.5.0 gives the error "Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 image to".

The Dell Precision has Intel's X38 Express chipset and ICH9R controller. I have tried booting the ESXi install CD with the machine configured both with the ICH9R in AHCI mode and with the ICH9R in RAID mode - same "Unable to find a supported device" error.

Has anyone got ESXi working on a Dell Precision withOUT the SaS RAID controller option, with just native SATA or AHCI or RAID from the integrated ICH9R controller?

Thanks

Jay

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DBLS3P
Contributor
Contributor

Well - I have the Q6600 CPU and the A05 BIOS and it does not work. I get the same freeze/hang-up that Draco is getting so I do not think it is processor related. I have tried everything so I am about ready to give up on this.

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Painesville_Don
Contributor
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Well, I still seem to be missing it. Dell Precision T3400, BIOS A05 or A07, with a SATA drive. Booting on ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 update 2, downloaded 7/29/08 at 4:30pm EST.

The only three options I have for the SATA controller are:

1) RAID Autodetect /AHCI (Error - Unable to find supported device...)

2) RAID Autodetect /ATA (hangs)

3) RAID on (didn't try, obviously RAID))

Libove - could you give us a clue as to where we can configure the controller to SATA-only please?

Thank you very much.

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libove
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Painesville_Don,

The list of options you see in your Precision T3400 BIOS is the same as the list I see in mine. I selected RAID Autodetect / ATA.

Are you sure there are no drives in your system which the ICG9R controller thinks have a RAID signature? Another way of asking this question: When your system goes through BIOS initialization, does it offer you the prompt to press CtrlI to enter RAID setup? If so, then your system is enabling RAID mode on the controller, and you must hit CtrlI during boot to enter RAID setup, and use the option to erase the RAID signature from all drives (which is likely to lose data on those drives, by the way - be careful).

Jay

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libove
Contributor
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Follow-up: The "Cat 5E" Ethernet cable I'm using on this system has a rubberized guard to protect the anchor tab ... which prevents the anchor tab from anchoring. When the ESXi server was telling me that it had no Link on the built-in Broadcom Ethernet adapter (which the installation had found and configured), it was right...

I had just updated the BIOS in this system to A07 at the same time as I realized this stupid Ethernet cable problem, so I can't say whether the A05 vs A07 BIOS version makes any difference.

So, here's my status:

  • ESXi 3.5.0 update 2 installed on Dell Precision T3400 BIOS A07 Q6600 CPU 4GB ECC DDR2 800 RAM, using a SATA-attached single non-RAID non-AHCI disk

  • Built-in Ethernet adapter (only Ethernet adapter in the system) configured and working

  • Web interface working

  • VMWare Infrastructure Client working to configure and remotely access VMs

And here's where I've realized that all of this is not useful to what I really want to accomplish, which is to use one monstrously powerful workstation as:

  • At the base, a truly Virtual Machine platform

  • On top of the VM base, my Domain controller (Server 2003 or 2008)

  • Also on top of the VM base, my main workstation, including things like Home Theatre functionality (I use SnapStream's Beyond TV product), dual video outputs (one for the primary display, and the other for video watching), with the VM base permitting this workstation (or even yet a third virtual machine) to have direct access to PCI / PCIx boards for hardware tuning and encoding of broadcast/ cable/ satellite video streams.

What I realize is that none of the virtualization environments can do two of the key things above:

1. Use the actual physical console of the machine as a high end graphic (video) workstation

2. Give a hosted virtual machine direct hardware access to e.g. hardware tuner / encoder boards and display full video to a secondary display

But it was fun while it lasted. And evidently, as long as you're satisfied either with no RAID, or having to plug in a supported RAID controller to get RAID, the Precision T3400 series will run ESXi 3.5.0 update 2.

Jay

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jmarctech
Contributor
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I am also trying to install ESXi 3.5 Update 2 on a Dell T3400 workstation (actually 2 of them).

I have set the SATA operation to ATA mode, disabled my 2nd SATA drive, and upgraded my Dell BIOS to A08 (the latest). I verified that the drive is seen in the BIOS and it says "controlled by System BIOS" (vs when it used to say ACHI or RAID previously). I also removed the RAID signature on both drives.

ESXi freezes on the ThinESX Installer screen every time.... Smiley Sad

This sort of problem really gives me the willies - maybe because we just bought ESX for 3 servers and are attempting to install ESXi on 4 others and this is my "dev" environment. I feel like we are leaping before we look here... Gotta say the product doesn't seem baked to me if it won't run on fairly new Dell powerhouse workstations.

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eivindo
Contributor
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I have the same problem, Mr. jmarctech

Help us someone?!

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

What sort of CPU does the PC have? Search the forum for noapic and give that switch a try when ESXi boots for the install.

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Draco_Dragonsfi
Contributor
Contributor

If I remember correctly, I've even tried noapic and acpi=off and whatever boot-line commands there are to bypass the freeze. I could be mistaken but I think this was mentioned already by not only me, but others as well.

The bigger question is why does it NOT freeze when it's set in any other mode other than ATA/IDE (where it should detect the drives perfectly).

These CPU's are stocked default with E4600, but obviously from other posts, even a Q6600 in these have no affect on the problem.

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libove
Contributor
Contributor

Note that the default E4600 CPU in the Precision T3400 does not have hardare virtualization support, so ESXi will not work with it. The ESXi installer should warn you of that, rather than just hanging, but either way there is no point trying to go forward with the E4600 CPU.

-Jay

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You can still install ESXi onto a host without Intel VT - you just won't be able to create x64 VMs. 32 bit VMs will run fine.

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Draco_Dragonsfi
Contributor
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If i'm not mistaken, VT support is not needed to run ESXi and definitely isn't needed on ESX - which if I may add, ran fine on this CPU/machine model.

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Draco_Dragonsfi
Contributor
Contributor

Success so far!

Booting off the CD is impossible, since it freezes but don't ask me why THIS works:

PXE booting works just fine!

So how come this doesn't work? Who the hell knows. So I have tftp-hpa running on a Gentoo machine here on our network to provide the cd's contents to the boot menu. Adding this to my pxelinux.cfg/default:

LABEL ESX 3i Install

kernel esxi/mboot.c32

append esxi/vmkernel.gz --- esxi/binmod.tgz --- esxi/ienviron.tgz --- esxi/cim.tgz --- esxi/oem.tgz --- esxi/license.tgz --- esxi/install.tgz

I copied the root of the cd off into the esxi folder under the tftp root directory. There's plenty of instructions on how to set this up as well out there, but I can help with some questions if you have them. Let me know how this works for ya'll. Smiley Happy

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malaysiavm
Expert
Expert

I am currently running with the precision 490 on esx 3.5i as well as 3.5 for testing purpose. I will say the config different I had with you is, I am using the Xeon processor which is same with the server processor on PE 2950. For memory I am using 16GB ECC servers memory. I am running my environment without raid and only SATA DISK. Everything is working accordingly.

Malaysia VMware Communities -

Craig vExpert 2009 & 2010 Netapp NCIE, NCDA 8.0.1 Malaysia VMware Communities - http://www.malaysiavm.com
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The_Other_Jeff_
Contributor
Contributor

I'll admit I haven't read all of the posts on this thread, so if I'm revisiting old topics, I apologize.

I'm assuming changing the SATA options in the BIOS of the T3400 to RAID Autodetect/ATA is somehow adversely affecting the operation of the SATA optical drive. Hence the lockups when using that mode.

I have come up with a different answer that is easier than setting up a PXE environment. All you need is a blank USB Key (Thumb, Pen, Jump, etc.) Drive and about 10 minutes. Here goes:

  1. Download UNetbootin. I used the Windows version available here:

  2. Run UNetbootin, select Distribution, FreeBSD, Version 7.0. At the bottom select USB Drive as the Type and the appropriate drive letter for your blank drive as the Drive. Click OK.

  3. Once UNetbootin completes, copy the contents of the ESXi CD to the USB Drive.

  4. On the USB drive, rename syslinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg.OLD.

  5. Make a copy of the ISOLINUX.CFG file and rename it to syslinux.cfg.

  6. Make sure the T3400 SATA Operation is set to RAID Autodetect/ATA in the BIOS.

  7. Plug the USB drive in to the T3400 and boot to it.

Using this method I had two T3400s installed and configured in less than 15 minutes.

I hope this helps everyone out. Enjoy.

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andy1121
Contributor
Contributor

I am using the usb key to install.

Always response "Unable to find a supported device to write the vmware esx server 3i 3.5.0 image to."

My T3400 BIOS Version is A07

And you?

And everyone error log with me the same?

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The_Other_Jeff_
Contributor
Contributor

A05

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Draco_Dragonsfi
Contributor
Contributor

andy1121:

Remember to NOT use RAID or AHCI for your drives, only ATA mode will work.

Jeff Elben: Thanks for that USB boot method. That should help out a bunch of people, since technically that method should work the same as PXE, since it's not using anything on that ATA/SATA bus. Rather an odd problem to say the least. Maybe some sort of IRQ conflict or somesuch between the CD drive and HDD. shrug

And yes, USB would be faster and much easier to set up! Smiley Happy

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andy1121
Contributor
Contributor

Oh My GOD~~~~

Thank you response.

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iben
Contributor
Contributor

FWIW -

I've recently setup VMware ESX Server 3i build-123629 (Update 3) on both a Dell Precision T3400 and a Precision 390 BIOS version 2.6.0 (05/19/08)

Seagate ST3160815AS Sata 160GB HD

In the BIOS I set SATA Operation to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI".

It was set to "RAID Autodetect / ATA" and there is also the option for "RAID". I tried the ATA and got the no disk found message during installation.

The CD did work fine in both cases and was able to run the installer all the way up to the disk detection point.

It is working fine on the Net with the on board Broadcom GigE NIC too BTW.

This is the ISO file I downloaded to run install these servers.

VMware ESX Server 3i U3 Installable Refresh

Version 3.5 Update 3 | 123629 md5sum: 444e1f57d1bc2296391b74e9ee406acb(¹)

https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/p/download.php?p=esxi&a=DOWNLOAD_FILE&baseurl=http://download2.vmwa...

Hope that helps some of you out there...

I b e n +14087824726 IM info: ibenrodriguez - yahoo iben.rodriguez - gmail ibenr - aol ibenrodriguez - skype Follow me on http://twitter.com/iben http://communities.vmware.com/people/iben
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lxupls1
Contributor
Contributor

I was able to setup esxi 3.5 update 4 on a T3400 by setting SATA Operation to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI".

Works great.

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