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5,248 Views 9 Replies Last post: Aug 13, 2008 6:36 AM by argolnx RSS
cmccracken Novice
cmccracken
13 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
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Jul 29, 2008 12:15 PM

PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

Hi All,

 

 

I have just downloaded ESXi 3.5 and am attempting to install it on my new Dell PowerEdge T105.  While I didn't see it on the HCL, I had hopes that it would work.  The installation itself was no problem, I didn't receive any warnings or errors.  However, after rebooting the server, and watching it load a fair number of modules correctly, I receive the panic.  I looked in the log (alt-f12) and it said that no private ID was set.  The hard drive is a 160GB Western Digital SATA using the onboard SATA controller.

 

 

Any assistance would be appriciated,

 

 

Casey

 

 

Dave.Mishchen… Guru User Moderators vExpert
Dave.Mishchen…
11,905 posts since
Nov 15, 2005
Currently Being Moderated
1. Jul 29, 2008 12:22 PM in response to: cmccracken
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

Do you know what kind of SATA controller the system has?  If not, can you try this

 

1)  Press - ALT-F1

2)  type in unsupported  and hit enter (you won't see unsupported as you type it).  If you got it right you'll see a warning message and then password prompt - hit enter.

3)  Run  lspci at the command prompt - do you see your storage controller?  You can run lspci -v  |  grep "part_of_controller_name"  to just show PCI ID info for the controller  (or you could try   lspci -v  | grep storage

 

What PCI data do you see for the controller?  Are you running the controller in RAID mode?

cmccracken Novice
cmccracken
13 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
2. Jul 29, 2008 12:44 PM in response to: Dave.Mishchen…
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

When I run lspci -v | grep storage I see:

 

 

00:07.00 IDE interface Mass storage controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

 

00:08.00 IDE interface Mass storage controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

 

I pulled out the quote I ordered the server with, but all it tells me is that it is onboard SATA.  I'm not running RAID.

 

 

Casey

 

 

 

 

 

Dave.Mishchen… Guru User Moderators vExpert
Dave.Mishchen…
11,905 posts since
Nov 15, 2005
Currently Being Moderated
3. Jul 29, 2008 12:52 PM in response to: cmccracken
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

If you do to the BIOS,  do you have the option to change the controller mode (i.e. set it to IDE).  Can you also post lspci -p  (if it outputs too much you can run lspci -p | grep 00:07

 

Some nVidia controllers do work with ESXi, but this is first mention i've seen of the CK804 model - it may be that ESXi won't work with it even thought it is able to recognize the hardware.

cmccracken Novice
cmccracken
13 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
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4. Jul 29, 2008 1:00 PM in response to: Dave.Mishchen…
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

The only two options I had for the controller were "off" and "auto".

 

 

lspci -p | grep 00:07 gave me:

 

 

00:07.00 10de:0054 1028:0225 10/ 10/0x81 A V sata_nv     vmhba0

 

 

Casey

 

 

cmccracken Novice
cmccracken
13 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
5. Jul 30, 2008 5:16 AM in response to: cmccracken
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

Am I out of luck?

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

Casey

 

 

cmccracken Novice
cmccracken
13 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
6. Jul 30, 2008 7:48 AM in response to: cmccracken
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

I found a work around.  I'm using a USB thumbdrive as my ESXi volume (and the local hard drive as a datastore).

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

Casey

 

 

dheilig Lurker
dheilig
1 posts since
Jul 30, 2008
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7. Jul 30, 2008 9:50 AM in response to: cmccracken
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

How did you get the option to select the USB drive as the partition to install to? I only have the options for the two sata drives.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

Dan

 

 

cmccracken Novice
cmccracken
13 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
8. Jul 30, 2008 11:36 AM in response to: dheilig
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

Hey Dan,

 

 

I used this post ESX Server 3i - USB flash drive boot possible! as my starting point.  It gives the setup on making an ESXi flash drive.  However, the tools weren't free so I made a few modifications.  I used 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) to open up the ESXi iso and pull out VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.  From there, I used the PDF on VMWorld (http://www.vmworld.com/vmworld/docs/DOC-1042) to use dd.exe to burn the image to my USB drive.  Once I had my USB set, all I had to do was boot from it on my server, and I was in business.

 

 

Casey

 

 

argolnx Lurker
argolnx
1 posts since
Aug 13, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
9. Aug 13, 2008 6:36 AM in response to: cmccracken
Re: PANIC:  Failed to find HD boot partition

 

hello!

 

 

i've got the same problem on a dell t105. the solution i've found was buying a cheap promise 300TX2 controller sata!

 

 

bye

 

 

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