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pbony63
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi & MacBook Pro Retina compatibility issue

Hello,

To demo ESXi 5 and our storage appliances, I used to run ESXi 5 on top of my MacBook Pro 2011 and even if it's not supported, setup was running perfectely. Note: I don't use VMware Fusion on top of OSX here, ESXi was really running / booting from an USB key.

I tried to install ESXi 5 on top of an USB dongle plugged into the flagship MBP Retina and got this fantastic pink page and error message:

VMware ESXi 5.0.0.0 [Releasebuild-623860 x86_64]

NOT_REACHED bora/vmkernel/hardware/hardware/intel/vtd.c:4463

cr0=0x8001003b cr2=0x0 cr3=0x8ae2f00 cr4=0x2078

*PCPU0:2048/bootstrap

PCPU  0: SISISISISISISIS

Code start: 0x418000400000 VMK uptime: 0:00:00:03.464

...

then I've got 16 lines starting with 0x417fc0406xxx

....

base fs=0x0 gs=0x418040000000 Kgs=0x0

Should I consider the new APPLE UEFI or CPU of this laptop causes this issue?

Would it be possible a 2012 Intel i7 2.6Ghz CPU is not vtd-aware? (Damned!)

Feedback from any Genius VMware/Apple workers, fans and powered-geeks will be highly appreciated 🙂

Note for the ones interested:

There is no issue running ESXi5 within Fusion 5 on top of a MacBook Pro Retina. I was just trying to save some GB of RAM by bypassing OSX & Fusion.

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4 Replies
ikklepaul
Contributor
Contributor

Have you had any luck getting this to work?

I'm having the same issue.

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Despite a slight difference in the error message, this is the exact same failure as discussed in this other thread regarding ESXi on the new MacMini6,2 systems.

ESXi 5.0 will report NOT_REACHED bora/vmkernel/hardware/intel/vtd.c:4463

ESXi 5.1 will report NOT_REACHED bora/vmkernel/hardware/intel/vtd.c:3638

I've filed an internal bug report to investigate the issue.

--

Darius

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pbony63
Contributor
Contributor

No, I still face the same issue and this is a big pain for me.

Reason is under Fusion 5 I can install one ESXi v5.X but only limited to 8GB of RAM when I'm running in fact 16GB.

so I have to install a second ESXi 5 to run my demo  😞

In any case, it's a mess to not be able to install ESXi v5 on top of so beautifull and portable Hardware.

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pbony63
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Folk,

I've just found this article focusing on the new Mac Mini facing the same issue

I did not try it yet but it may fixed our issue on rMBP  🙂

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/423099?start=0&tstart=0


Here's a possible workaround...

Very early in the boot process, a prompt appears in the bottom-right corner  of the screen to press Shift+O to edit boot options.  At that time,  press Shift+O and you'll get an editable line of text along the bottom  of the screen with a cursor at the end.  Add a single space followed by:

   iovDisableIR=TRUE

Then press the Enter key and the system will attempt boot.

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