Just had the same problem on a Dell PE 2600.

I used the upgrade tarball with esxupdate and when the server rebooted, it was not able to mount the root

My next step was to try an install from the CD... until I read this thread.

Think I'll got and watch Dr Who then...

Hi all,
same problem here on DELL 1800 (PERC4,SC) and DELL 6650 (PERC4,SC) latest PERC Firmware.
That must be a driver bug. With ESX 3.02U1 without problems.
I hope that it will give for it soon a solution.

Nice surprise between the holidays

Stefan

Weird.

I do it on an identical PE6850 and it works. Same firmware of MEGARAID too

This machine doesn't work:
v2.10.7 (Release Date: Sat Jun 5 02:32:59 EDT 2004)
PERC 4/DC
Controller Type: 438/466/467/471/493/518/520/531/532
Controller Supports 40 Logical Drives
Controller capable of 64-bit memory addressing
Controller using 64-bit memory addressing
Base = 3fe02000, Irq = 153, Initial Logical Drives = 1, Channels = 2
Version =*352D*:1.10, DRAM = 128Mb
Controller Queue Depth = 254, Driver Queue Depth = 126
...

This machine works:

v2.10.7 (Release Date: Sat Jun 5 02:32:59 EDT 2004)
PERC 4/DC
Controller Type: 438/466/467/471/493/518/520/531/532
Controller Supports 40 Logical Drives
Controller capable of 64-bit memory addressing
Controller using 64-bit memory addressing
Base = 0b402000, Irq = 153, Initial Logical Drives = 1, Channels = 2
Version =*352A*:1.10, DRAM = 128Mb
Controller Queue Depth = 254, Driver Queue Depth = 126

*The ONLY difference is the REVISION (Correction:FIRMWARE) of the controller*

But it is the NEW 3.5 ESX that does not work on the NEW firmware, where 3.0.2 works!

There ist http://kb.vmware.com/kb/5966817
But it is related to 3.0.x, not 3.5 and not excactly hits the problem.

I've experienced a very similar problem using the MegaRaid in a whitebox solution, I'll be watching this thread to see if there's a solution.