Hey Folks,
i am facing a very strange error while installing guest os' on our Dell PowerEdge R920 with installed ESXi 5.5.
Our Configuration of the R920:
- 24 CPU
- 192 GB RAM
- 10 x 600GB Harddisk, RAID50
First i've installed the ESXi 5.5 on an USB-Stick on the internal port.
The RAID seems to be okay, we've got a DataStore with 4,35 TB Storage.
The first attempt to install Windows 8.1 Pro crashed with Error "Windows could not format a partition on disk 0".
I tried to install Win7 Pro, same error here.
The attempts to install a Linux OS failed as well with the comment that something could not be formatted properly.
I've contacted Dell Support, they could not solve this problem. I've send a DSET with all Drivers, Firmware etc. to Dell, they said that all of this is up2date.
At this point, i think i tried everything to get this thing running. We've installed ESXi on Harddisk, installed 5.1, 5.5, Dell customized 5.5, deleted the virtual Disk, initialized the RAID. We used several USB-Sticks.
No matter what we do, the GuestOS install will fail.
I really really need some new input.
If you need any further information, please ask.
Thanks,
Dennis
-- Sorry for my bad english, no native speaker
.
Have you re downloaded the ESXi version you are using? You may have gotten a slightly corrupted ESXi image.
Additionally, What storage adapter are you using when you create your virtual machines with; Some adapters like the Paravirtual require vmware tools.
Hi.
I've downloaded the DELL ESXi 5.5 at Dells Website and the ESXi 5.5 at my.vmware.com.
I don't think that both images are corrupted.
We use "LSI Logic SAS" as storage adapter.
As a quick test, please boot the VM from the Windows 7 image to the language selection screen, then press Shift-F10 which will open a command prompt. From there start diskpart. Within diskpart try to clean the partition table on the virtual disk.
select disk 0
clean
Disk 0 should be the empty virtual disk, in case you are unsure run list disk as the first command.
If this doesn't work, please post the output of the commands.
André
André, thank you for this idea.
I will try this tomorrow, first i have to upload the ISO Image into the DataStore.
Hang on, i'll post the results as soon as possible.
Dennis
Hello Dennis,
just in addition to above suggestions have you tried:
- Perform Hardware diagnostics from within Dell Lifecycle Controller (F10 in boot screen) on the server
- In RAID setup create new VD group with just two physical drives as RAID1 and on these drives build new DS
- RAID advanced policy (read/write) is in default?
- Try the same with some test NFS datastore? not local disks
You can also use VMFS metadata analyzer to verify your datastore consistency:
VMware KB: Using vSphere On-disk Metadata Analyzer (VOMA) to check VMFS metadata consistency
Please post your partition table from affected datastore :
partedUtil getptbl "/vmfs/devices/disks/DeviceName"
...and have a look at this article:
Error 0x80070057 when you format a hard disk drive to install Windows 7
André, i tried diskpart as you suggested. I was able to clean disk 0 without errors, but the error at installation of the guest os still occurs.
vNEX: I've followed the guide you posted from Microsoft KnowledgeBase, but at Step 13 the error "This Partition could not be formatted" occurs.
Now i'll try to perform the hardware diagnostics
I've already built a smaller RAID (1,5TB) and set this as DataStore. Without success. Error still occurs.
The RAID policies are in default
Please find attached the information of the partition table:
After running hardware diagnostics, it said that everything is okay. (Except for PowerSupply Redundancy, but i don't think that this causes the issues)
from PT picture nothing suspicious so please run metadata analyzer against partition 1 :
voma -m vmfs -d /vmfs/devices/disks/naa.6b82a720d479a7001b74fc9e0ecc0409:1 -s /tmp/vomares.txt
and post vomares content...
If your VMFS is in good shape it has to look like this:
From the second picture I see that last test ended without any errors but what was these "PowerSupply Redundancy" errors from August 6 has someone manipulate with power supplies....?!
Regarding Dell documentation the cause is:
One or more power supply units (PSUs) has failed or been removed so the system is no longer redundant.
Just little bit from my experience with R720 we have changed system boards quite frequently on several servers because of "PS1 PG Fail voltage is outside of range" error we were told by Dell support
that is the PS controller unit failure on MB and they always changed board including one of reported PS. (4 times we were lucky one time server ended in PSOD)
I don't want to make any conclusion from above but be cautious with similar errors and don't overlook them I can imagine that power inconsistency can lead to unpredictable system behavior including RAID controller I/O errors...
So maybe engaging Dell technician on site to perform comprehensive HW diagnostic may be useful.
Hi.
At the moment we are running the R920 with just one power supply, because we need to run at least one virtual machine on the esxi before we can transport the server to our datacenter.
Wow, this is a huge file. And there are lots of Disk errors.
This picture ist just a snippet, there are 6600 Errors in this file!
How can i fix this?
so I would file SR to VMware support to consult these errors ... as I am aware there is no public repair tool for VMFS...
or you can try to recreate partition table with partedUtil see:
VMware KB: Using the partedUtil command line utility on ESXi and ESX
Hey vNEX,
i've managed to reinstall ESXi (Dell 5.5. Update 1 Rollup 2) and recreated the partition table.
Now the voma check results are okay. (0 Errors)
At the installation routine of a new guest OS (Win8.1) the error "A Partition on Disk0 could not be formatted" still occurs. I've tried the solution you've posted before ( Error 0x80070057 when you format a hard disk drive to install Windows 7) and now it works. BUT: After i've installed vmware tools and a Vsphere client 5.5 on Win8.1, the system needs to be rebooted. After reboot the Machine stops working. When i boot Win8.1 , the system tries to repair the boot disk, this fails every time and the system reboots, just to try to repair the boot disk and so on...
Regards,
Dennis
Hello Denis,
so there is maybe something wrong with HW envelop for this machine...
What SCSI controller is configured for that machine? (LSI Logic Parallel, BusLogic are unsupported)
Which Guest Operating System is selected in General options?
Only LSI Logic SAS controller (default) or the PVSCSI controller are supported for use with 8.1 release ...
USB xHCI controller isnt recommended for use with W8...
Do you configured any specialities for that VM,...independent disks etc.
to repair your system startup boot from installation media and choose -> Repair your computer -> Troubleshoot -> in Advanced Options ->Command prompt and run these commands:
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
if commands above doesn't help go to the command prompt again and try to repair volume boot code:
bootsect /nt60 SYS
Hello vNEX,
The used SCSI Controller is LSI Logic Parallel, Guest OS is Windows 8 (64bit)
The machine is configured with 1 CPU, 2GB RAM and 200GB HDD. Ethernet E1000 Adapter. VMFS 5.
No specialities.
I'll try with the suggested commands.
Thanks a lot!
so LSI Logic Parallel adapter is the issue change it to LSI Logic SAS.
Good Luck!
I'm sorry, my bad. Actually it's LSI Logic SAS.
We left all parameters on default.
Additional Info:
I've configured a new guest with same parameters.
The system looks like this:
Hi Dennis,
I hope you're doing well.
I'm having the same issue as you, literally everything that you said, I'm having the same issue. No matter what I've tried it's not working. I've been pulling my hair for the past few days trying to figure out what is wrong but I can't find anything online.
Did you find a solution?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Attila
Having the same issue with a Dell R630 using local disks in a RAID50 config, local datastore and raid controller.
VM's are setup using LSI Logic SAS but they can't format the Drive.
We are using system center to install the OS on VMware, it fails in formatting the Drive with the same error.
Anyone come up with anything on this?
I'm having the issue on a R730XD. Seemed to be a size limitation. with 8 x 1TB drives I was trying RAID6 @ 5.6TB. I was able to upload an iso but my OS install couldn't do anything to format the new VHD. RAID10 @ 3.6TB works but I can't really give up that space.
Hoping someone else found the issue.
