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Kuntzelman
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Updating to ESX 3.5i Update 3 fails - Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3.1 3.5.0 image to

I'm using ESX 3.5i Update 2 on my Dell PowerEdge SC440 (as a test server - my production servers are all Dell PE2850/PE2950, which are listed in the HCL). When I attempt to install Update 3 (build 123629), I get the error "Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3.1 3.5.0 image to".

fdisk -l (in Tech Support Mode) shows:

Disk /dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:0: 250.0 GB

Device

Boot

Start

End

Blocks

Id

System

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:1

5

750

763904

5

Extended

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:2

751

4845

4193280

6

FAT16

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:4

*

1

4

4080

4

FAT16 <32M

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:5

5

52

49136

6

FAT16

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:6

53

100

49136

6

FAT16

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:7

101

210

112624

fc

VMKcore

/dev/disks/vmhba1:0:0:8

211

750

552944

6

FAT16

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I did have datastore 1 using the remainder of this disk, but I removed it after the first failure (moved all the VMs to datastore 2, which is currently off-line so as not to interfere with the install).

Everything looks fine - the Update just doesn't like something (and I can't tell what it doesn't like).

The system is running in 4GB of RAM on a Pentium Xeon 3050 @ 2.13GHz.

Anyone have any ideas?

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Dave_Mishchenko
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What model of SATA controller do you have? If it's an Intel ICH7 then there have been some changes make in simple.map that you would have to fix as ESXi is now treating some ICH7 controllers as IDE devices.

View solution in original post

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guyrleech
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Sounds related to what I've just experience in that I've just updated my Dell PowerEdge 830 from update 2 to update 3 via Update Manager and it has lost the two local SATA VMFSs that were working fine in update 2 (and prior to that too). It has kept the two NFS datastores I have defined.

It does see them in the storage controller view but if I got and try to add them, it wants to format them. I am now trying to find a non-destructive way to add them so any suggestions appreciated.

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wila
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Hi ,

It does see them in the storage controller view but if I got and try to add them, it wants to format them. I am now trying to find a non-destructive way to add them so any suggestions appreciated.

Check Ulli's post here

\

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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guyrleech
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Thanks - had just found the same info in this post and am back up and running:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/72948

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Dave_Mishchenko
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What model of SATA controller do you have? If it's an Intel ICH7 then there have been some changes make in simple.map that you would have to fix as ESXi is now treating some ICH7 controllers as IDE devices.

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Kuntzelman
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That must be it. According to Update 2, the controller is:

82801 GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller IDE

The first drive (where Update 2 is installed) is device vmhba1

The second drive (installed after the system was up and running) is device vmhba32

How would I change the simple.map to continue supporting this controller?

==============================

I'm going to call this answered. Dave and others provided the needed information on several other threads.

1) I was trying to upgrade using the CD because I'd forgotten about the "VMware Infrastructure Update" client, which is the correct method to upgrade ESXi. When I used the VMware Infrastructure Update client, the upgrade completed normally (although my datastores were unavailable, see below). This page is very helpful for the upgrade: vm-help.com

2) After the upgrade, the datastores were unavailable (the system saw them as snapshots) which is apparently something to do with a change in the way that VMware sees the ICH7 family controllers. The fix is in the following thread: Recovering datastores on ICH7 controller after upgrade to U3.

3) If I want to reinstall from scratch later or on a new box using U3, I'll need to change the simple.map in the oem.tgz file, and instructions for that are on the vm-help.com site referenced in #1.

Message was edited by: Kuntzelman

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