ESXI 5.5 and Windows 2008 R2

[efeurich]

Hi There,

I think I have a problem with ESXi and installing W2008 R2 from an ISO.

Laast year used ESXi 5.0 and installed several W2008 R2 servers and everything was honky dory.

At the end of the last year I upgraded to ESXi 5.5 and now i am having problems with installing W2008 R2 from ISO.

I already used different ISO images and I have installed W2012 R2 and that went fine.

Can somebody direct me to the correct place to understand and maybe resolve this problem?

Thanks,

Eric

[bspagna89]

Hi,

What exactly is happening?

[efeurich]

Hi,

After setup is finished starting up takes forever...like an hour.

When it finally is started clicking start menu an config firewall stuff is very slow.

After more then 8 hours of updates downloading and installing the system restarts and never comes up anymore.

I have stopped the server by just killing it and after startup then it reverted to a state with no updates and config.

Before on ESXi 5.0 installation was done in 1 hour working and configuration.

System has 4 Gb and 2 CPU assigned

What do you need more to get a idea of what is happening?

[bspagna89]

Just checking.. VMware tools was installed and was the hardware version brought up to 10 as well?

[efeurich]

I have just installed VMWare Tools. But after restart the system takes already 15 minutes to startup now.

Hardware version was set to version 10 when creating the VM.

it is started now and everything seems slow and sluggish. But update is downloading 150 or more updates now.

[efeurich]

How and where can I check whats hapening in vSphere Web Client or the console?

[corvettefisher]

Are you attaching the ISO from a datastore or from your local computer attached via a console session?

[bspagna89]

To see the performance in web client you can select the VM -> Click Monitor - > Performance -> You should see some graphs.

Still thinking about this one.. Hopefully someone else can chime in with any ideas in the meantime.. Sorry havent been much help so far. I am running 5.5 with 2k8R2 and I am not seeing this issue. What version of 5.5 (build)?

[efeurich]

I attached the iso from datastore.

Thanks for all your help. I'll check out the performance monitor.

For the version see attached screenshot

[efeurich]

From a datastore.

[Alistar]

Hi,

did you try changing the sotrage controller to LSI Logic SAS from the VM Options menu? There could be problem with the older compatibility. Also please post your vmware.log under the /vmfs/volumes/datastore/vmname folder for any errors, along with /var/log/vmkernel.log and /var/log/vmkwarning.log. Also observing esxtop during the installation or posting the performance graphs (mainly Disk -> latency and Cpu Usage) would help a lot.

Cheers!

[efeurich]

HI and thanks for your reply.

The storage controller is already set to LSI Logic SAS.

Attached you'll find the requested files.

I will have a look at the esxtop command line and post the other stuff you asked for.

already thanks for looking in to this.

[bspagna89]

Hey Efeurich,

Here's some more info on using ESXTOP incase you need :

1. SSH into the host where the VM resides.

2. Type esxtop and hit enter.

3. Type the letter "v" and it should flip to the Virtual Machine view where you can monitor the reads/writes and commands (total) iops for the VM.

You should also see Latency RD/WR.

[efeurich]

I can see that the LAT/rd and LAT/wr for the W2008 R2 VM are extremely higher then the other ones.

I can't find what this means on the InterWeb.

[Alistar]

Oh wow, these numbers are huge - there is a problem on the storage array. Can you describe your storage in more detail? What spindles, is it directly attached.. etc?

EDIT: ok, the vmkwarning.log is overflowing with HBA-related errors. I strongly suggest you try replacing cables on the path from your drives to the RAID array, unplugging the drive SAMSUNG_HD103SJ with s/n S246J9FB504743 and check it for SMART errors in antoher box. Or it could mean that your RAID controller is failing OR its battery is discharged and it is now in write-through mode instead of write-back.

2014-09-09T22:07:39.412Z cpu1:13555229)WARNING: ScsiDeviceIO: 1223: Device t10.ATA_____SAMSUNG_HD103SJ_________________________S246JX0B402652______ performance has deteriorated. I/O latency increased from average value of 2396 microseconds to 72$

2014-09-09T22:35:17.872Z cpu3:5172241)WARNING: LinScsi: SCSILinuxQueueCommand:1207: queuecommand failed with status = 0x1056 Unknown status vmhba0:0:0:0 (driver name: ahci) - Message repeated 423 times

2014-10-15T08:45:07.208Z cpu4:32791)WARNING: NMP: nmp_DeviceRequestFastDeviceProbe:237: NMP device "t10.ATA_____SAMSUNG_HD103SJ_________________________S246J9AB512721______" state in doubt; requested fast path state update...

2014-10-15T08:45:07.220Z cpu2:32952)WARNING: HBX: 1781: HB [HB state abcdef02 offset 3534848 gen 26355 stampUS 2398250094474 uuid 54199c09-9cef6656-2d8c-8c89a52d98d3 jrnl <FB 857000> drv 14.60] was aborted on vol 'datastore4', disk contents unkno

Edit2: Come to think of it you might have this Samsung drive as a single drive to store your ISOs? If so then try placing another drive instead and try it out...

[efeurich]

Hi,

I have removed the vm's from the datastore that was generating the errors and moved it to one that ran fine.

Now the W2008 R2 vm runs fine 🙂

I think I have to replace that drive. but I can't do this now because the VM  is heavily used for testing purposes.

Is there away I can reformat or reinitialize the drive so it can run again for some time until I am able to replace the drive?

Eric 

[Alistar]

Hi again,

your best bet would be to re-plug the drive, remove the datastore that is on there and create a new one (or just plug it in another box and run a format on it)