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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

boot error after installing ESXi 4.0 on hp xw4400 workstation

Hello ,

I am using the evaluation version and using the hp xw4400 workstation box to install ESXi 4.0.

I am booting from the DVD drive , ESXi recognizes the SATA drives (2) connected.

I installed on the Drive 0. The installation is complete and when I reboot the screen shows booterror and stops.

This box has intel core2 duo 6300 . 2 GB RAM and 2 SATA discks.

The virtualization is enabled in BIOS.

Please help me .

Thanks and regards,

Manjuantha

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13 Replies
Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

maybe this document will be helpful?

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8970

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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Troy Clavell ,

Thanks for the reply. The link you have posted is talking about Running Nested VMs.

I am just installing ESXI 4.0 and getting this error after installing and trying boot the machine.

Regards,

Manjuantha.V

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Have you tried with just a single drive and what's the specific error that you get?

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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi ,

No I have not tried with the single drive. Since Hardware is locked and need to be opened by a Hardware engineer.

I will chek if I can do that . With 2 disks I am getting 'Boot Error ' and it halts .

I will try to do it with single disk and update .

Regards,

Manjunatha.V

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

What mode is the SATA controller set to. You might also trying booting from a USB flash drive - www.vm-help.com

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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Dave.Mishchenko ,

I am very dumb on hardware stuff ... This is first time I am doing an installation and stuff like this . Please bear with me.

I could not locate SATA controller on BIOS. I can see under storage options -> SATA emulation - > RAID + AHCI . Is this what you are asking for ?.

Regarding booting from USB flash drive, I have no issues in booting from CD-ROM and installing on to one of the disk. Its only after the installation these issues are cropping up.

Thanks a lot .

Regards,

Manjunatha.V

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

SATA emulation - > RAID + AHCI

Yes - so is that the current setting and what options do you have?

Regarding booting from USB flash drive

You can actually run ESXi from a USB flash drive and then just use the local HDs for storage of VMs.

manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Dave.Mishchenko ,

Thanks for the directions ...

While looking for other options in emulator I can see AHCI, Seperate IDE controller and Combined IDE controller apart from RAID + AHCI.

When I selected AHCI he showed up primary and secondary disk's and I was able to disable secondory disk.

When I saved and rebooted .. ESXI came up !! nice to see this ... but said "Failed to find boot partition" and stopped ...

I will now re-install on the primary disk again and chek what 's happening ...

Thanks again ...for quick responses.

regards,

Manjunatha.V

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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I disabled one secondary disk and installed ESXi on the primary.

After the installation the ESXi boots up and shows this message "Failed to find boot partition" and stops.

Any clue ?

Regards,

Manjunatha.v

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You might also try it in IDE mode (see instructions on vm-help.com for "IDE" installs) and I would wipe the partitions on both drives before you install again. When you do have the ESXi install running, can you switch to the console (ALT+F1 - user is root password is blank) and then fdisk -l to see what disks ESXi is able to see

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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I will try this out. Can you please tell me how can I format or wipe the disk partitions . Since there is no OS installed how can I do this?.

Regards,

Manjunatha.V

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

You can use a Linux live CD for that.

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manjunatha1977
Contributor
Contributor

Hi ,

Thanks a lot . I formatted the primary disk and installed the ESXI 4.0 on the secondary disk. It installed and booted properly .

To quickly summarize these are the steps I did to make ESXi 4.0 work on hp xw4400 with 2 SATA discks.

1)Set the SATA emulator to AHCI.

2)Format the Primary disk.

3)install the ESXi 4.0 on secondary disk.

Thats it .....it worked ... Smiley Happy

thanks a ton for your help and guidance.

Regards,

Manjunatha.V

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