But I think I may have actually found the problem, I downloaded the latest version of Dell's Server Assistant CD to see if I could get that going and then use it to install ESX 3.5, it's also Linux, and interestingly it went on to say the following:

Ready.
Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel.
Booting the system, please wait...
Mounting the server assistant installation media...
Having problems mounting server assistant media.
There may be a problem with the media.

I'm not a Linux guy (wish I was), but I'm guessing it can't see the disk? Very interesting, I am only using one disk, a Seagate (ST3300655SS) 300 GB 15,000 RPM SAS drive. I tried attaching it directly to the SAS1068-IR integrated controller, and when that didn't work, I bought a controller that was on the HCL, an LSI 3041E, but it didn't like that either. And I tried just using a regular 500GB 7200 RPM SATA drive, but still the same thing. I must be missing something here.

Do I need to have at least 2, or 3 disks in a raid configuration? Is this drive maybe too fast, or it just plain doesn't see/support it? It see's it in the BIOS no problem, and I've tried making it the primary boot device and hitting F12 to then manually start the install CD, no love.

Is there a way in Linux that I can manually set the boot device or mount the media? This has to be the issue and would explain why it hangs immediately, it can't mount the install files to any media.

I tried the version of ESX I have here on a 690 on the SAS controller as both separate disks and as a raid 0 and the installer passed the ‘uncompressing linux' both times with no issues. I also have 2 gb ram, an nvidia card, 2 sata drives on the sas controller, but only have 2 dual core's not quads. That looks like the only real difference with the system I have here and yours. You might want to try installing in text mode if you haven't tried that already (type: esx text at the boot prompt). You could still try moving the drives off the sas controller and putting them on the sata controller just to make sure that isnt a problem. There is no performance hit on the drives using the sata over sas. Also try switching the operations as I mentioned from AHCI to ATA and see if that helps.

Usually Dell ships the sata drives on the SAS controller, if you really wanted to you could try moving those drives to the SATA ports (labeled SATA 0 and 1 on the motherboard), turning off the SAS controller in the bios and changing the sata operation to ATA and trying it that that way. Of course whatever OS your have on your drives will not work if you pull them off of the SAS controller.

I will get a 690 today and see if I get the same results on the SAS and then see if they work on the SATA ports and let you know how it goes. Another customer is having the same type of install issues but on a 390 and he asked VM and this is what he told me...

VMWare said that ESX is not supported on Precisions, only certain Power Edges

They said I could install VMWare Server on Windows

and then create a VM and install ESX on that VW and it might work

I've been crazy busy lately with work and school, but will fool around with the disk setup again this weekend and the settings Ian suggested above.

Thanks Michael, appreciate all your help man, so do you have a 690 that won't run ESX as well?

Ralph

I gave up on ESX and just installed Server 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V virtualization built in, I probably shouldn't mention it on this board, I wanted to use VMware but it just wouldn't work on my system.

Server 2008 is very nice though, installed with all drivers and no updates were needed, the Hyper-V role is cool too, looks just like VMware server, but it only supports Windows machines at this point, not Linux etc.

Good luck my friend, two months of trying every conceivable configuration wouldn't work, even the Dell Linux expert said other 690 customers were having the same "hang" issue and there was no explanation.

Thanks for all your help Michael and take care.

Oh well...

But I'll give it another shot when I get home and will let you know if that's the issue with me as well.

Hey thanks for jumping in and lending a hand tys -