I just tried it with one drive to rule out any variables. I still get the "Mounting root failed" At that the maintenance shell you get, a cat /proc/partitions shows no disks at all.

Of course the Service Console works just fine.

Poking around in the logs under /log the vmklog.drivers, make it look like the device driver just simply doesn't see the disks. The 'phy stat' messages look 'odd'.

0:00:00:11.482 cpu1:1034)<6>ata1: no device found (phy stat ffffffff)

vs

0:00:00:11.908 cpu1:1034)<6>ata3: no device found (phy stat 00000000)

I'm guessing its a bug in the particular version of sata_nv.o w/ ESX, however, I've yet to try re-compiling the module from the GPL'ed source w/ a few more debug messages in it....

What other details would you like?

Thanks,

David

The thing that gets me is if I put any other disks in the system, they'll show up, its just the boot disk. <shrug>

I suppose I could just deal with the loss, but who really wants to waste 250Gb in that fashion....

David

9690SA series products - VMware ESX Server v3.5 (kernel 2.4.21-47.EL) are supported with the 9.5.0.2 code set. VMware 3.02 Update 1 and VMware 3.5 Update 2 are supported with the 9.5.1 code set. It is not possible to upgrade from VMware 3.5 Update 1 to VMware 3.5 Update 2. If you want to use VMware 3.5 Update 2 you must install it fresh.

None of the VMware support is VMware certified. VMware 3.5 Update 2 certified support will be available in the future.

For VMware ESXi Server v3.5 Update 2 support, see KB article 15416 http://www.3ware.com/kb/article.aspx?id=15416 .

Virgil

Message was edited by: virgilwashere to include VI3.5 U2 information

"Mounting root failed. Dropping into basic maintenance shell.
.
.
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off "

Now Ive gone through, run the script provided in page 3, followed another guys steps;

Modify /etc/vmware/pciid/megaraid2.xml In the file you need to reflect you PCI card ID, in my case 0409, so i just changed the 0408 id to 0409 after the file is modified, run the command esxcfg-pciid run esxcfg-boot -p run esxcfg-boot -b reboot your server
(my device ID, as far as I know is 0604, which I replaced in those steps)
and still I come up to the same mounting root failed.

Another thing that may be of interest is everytime I choose to restart in the Service Console, at the very end it says "Kernel Panic". Now maybe my main problem is that I dont know much about linux, Im admittedly a windows user, but I know that cant be good. Now maybe its something I have inside my system that is not correct, so I will list my hardware configuration from top to bottom. I would really appreciate any help or suggestions, Im trying to evaluate ESX server for my business as opposed to using VM Server, but if this keeps up, Im not wasting $1800 on a license for ESX. So here is what Im working with.

Supermicro X7DAE Rev 2.0
2 Intel 5140 Xeon CPU's
6GB Kingston FB-DIMM 667MHz
LSI MegaRAID 300-8x
-->5 WD Raptors - RAID 5
ATi RagePRO 16MB
LG DVD-RW

Ive tried to find a list of supported hardware, but there isnt one to really check against. If anyone knows something Im missing, Im all ears.

As well, I noticed that the MegaRAID 150 was on the list, and the card Im using is a MegaRAID 300, and it shows the drives as SCA, so it seems to present them as scsi drives, so why does it not work?