ESXi 5.x on new Apple Mac Mini 6,2 Late 2012 *NOT* working

[ViennaAustria]

Hello!

I bought one of the new MacMinis, which were presented yesteraday, plugged two 8GiB DD3-1600 modules in (OsX reported 16GiB of memory, as the models before) and tried to install ESXi 5.1 Build 799733. It started promising:

Initializing chipset...

Initializing timing...

Initializing scheduler...

Initializing processors...

Initializing ACPI...

*BANG*

Pink screen!

NOT_REACHED bora/vmkernel/hardware/intel/vtd.c:3638

cr0=0x8001003d cr2=0x0 cr3=0x449ad500 cr4=0x12c

*PCPU0:4096/bootstrap

PCPU  0: SISISISISISISIS

Code start: 0x41800c600000 VMK uptime: 0:00:00:04.301

and a stackdump.

I tried instalkling 5.0 and 5.0 U1 also, but with the same result.

It is the regular MacMini with an i7 4C 2.3GHz and one 1TB SATA drive (http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD388LL/A with no extras), not the MacMini Server.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

PS1: I was unable to boot the ESXi setup from USB key! Since other USB keys (OsX setup for example) didn't work either, I suspect that there's some EFI boot problem from the new USB3 ports. Booting from CD worked, however.

PS2: on the earlies models we had the problem, that the Alt key wasn't recognized after powering on, when there is an USB hub between the keyboard and the Mac (a KVM switch for example). That seems to be fixed now: whenever I press the Alt key at the powerup chime, I get the Apple "boot menu", even with our KVM switch in between.

[zer010gic]

I just installed Mtn Lion from a fresh install as well with no issue.

[akula169]

Yes, I did install that SMC ISO as an upgrade to my ESXi install.

If I start a fresh VM and attempt to boot from ISO or DMG (both Lion and MLion) I get the Apple logo on boot.. and a grey spinner.... eventually the screen goes white and I get the death beachball.

I've also tried using the VMWare Converter to convert a Fusion VM to a ESXi VM.  Before I converted, I added the -v boot option so I could see the output.  It fails like so:

[akula169]

In the case that something was possibly wrong with the upgrade procedure, I'll try the upgrade one more time.

UPDATE

For the record: this time I used the "Install but preserve Datastore" method.  Success in getting the OSX MLion ISO to boot to install!

[dariusd]

0x80000001 is "Load Error".  Not terribly descriptive.

How much RAM does the virtual machine have?  You'll need at least 2 GBytes for Mountain Lion.  If you continue to have trouble with the converted VM, try booting the Mountain Lion's InstallESD.dmg inside the VM and using Disk Utility to check the integrity of the converted Macintosh HD volume.  Or attach to your reply the vmware.log produced by a failed boot attempt, and I'll take a look.

Cheers,

--

Darius

[zer010gic]

I suspect this is because the AppleSMC driver has just been modified and is not a true "New Version".  It was probably not changing the driver thus you where not getting the patch.

Corey

[HPReg]

Looks like the kernel cache is corrupted. Try 2 things:

1) Deleting it

2) Re-generating it (by running "sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions" for example, then shutting down the system)

[twuhabro]

doesn't worked on mi mini :smileyconfused:

edit: my EPIC FAIL :smileylaugh:

i've updated the hypervisort to te last patch...

hoping in an official fix in some month...

[discostur]

I've updated my ESXi installation to the latest version 838463 and then updated the system with the SMC_fixed iso. Does this work? Because the ISO has the 7xxx version ...

If i try to install Mac OS 10.6.6 i'm getting the following error:

Warning: The guest os is not mac osx server. the virtual machine is powered off

Any idea what that means? i have a normal 10.6.6 dmg file for the installation.

[dariusd]

Hi discostur,

We can't virtualize the regular Mac OS X 10.6 "Client", because Apple's Software License Agreement (SLA) for non-Server versions demands that it's running directly on the Apple hardware (so I am told).  For Mac OS X 10.6 Server, the SLA for the "Server" flavor of the OS permits running virtualized, when the physical host hardware is Apple-branded.  If you need to run Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6 in a VM, it'll have to be Mac OS X Server.

Apple lifted that restriction in Lion (Mac OS X 10.7) and newer versions.

Cheers,

--

Darius

[Yalvarez]

Guys i had been reading a lot. I am getting my mac this thursday and i wont even use montain lion lol. i will install ESXi right away. thank you for making this posible.

[dburkland]

I was able to get ESXi 5.1 installed on my brand new Mac Mini 6,2 (2.3GHz Core i7 quad) without issues. This entire thread has been extremely helpful so a big thanks goes out to all of the contributors! Thanks again!

[sirozha1]

I've installed the original ISO linked to here (ESXi-5.x-MacMini-6-2.iso) on the Late 2012 Mac Mini with 2.6 GHz Intel i7 CPU. Everything went well and I'm now migrating my ESXi lab to the Mac Mini. Thank you so much for making this possible!

I've never run an OS X server (on physical hardware or as a VM) before, but I'm thinking about running it on the 2012 Mac Mini as one of my VMs. I want to centralize the backup of all of my iOS devices, the Time Machine backups, and also use it as an iTunes server, FTP server, Squeezebox server, etc. So, I have three questions:

1. Is the second ISO linked to here (ESXi-5.1-MacMini-SMC-6-2.iso) a temporary solution that may have some issues with OS X run as a VM, and if so, should I wait for an official (or semi-official) fix from VMware?

2. Is it possible to upgrade the ESXi installed on a 2012 Mac Mini from the original image (ESXi-5.x-MacMini-6-2.iso) to the ESXi with the SMC fix, using ESXi-5.x-MacMini-6-2.iso without having to reformat the hard drive and start from scratch? 

3. I'm considering a Drobo 5D (Thunderbolt storage) to be used with a 2012 Mac Mini running ESXi. I want to host all of my VMs on the datastore located on the Drobo. Does ESXi 5.1 (and especially the custom image made for the 2012 Mac Mini - ESXi-5.1-MacMini-SMC-6-2.iso) support Thunderbolt storage devices? Do you guys think this would be a more reliable solution than the solution I'm currently using, namely iSCSI-based datastores on a ReadyNAS Pro 6? One of the areas I believe the improvement may happen is the access speeds because of the Thunderbolt bandwidth compared to 1 Gbps maximum bandwidth for the iSCSI based datastores. Additionally, I've become dissatisifed with the level of support that I can get from Netgear, so even though the ReadyNAS line is a fantastic line of NAS devices (mostly due to the company that developed them - Infrant), if something goes wrong (which it has with my ReadyNAS), the suport is dismal, and I am no longer comfortable with relying on this NAS even if only for the lab purposes and for the backups of all of my Macs and iOS devices.

Thank you!

[HPReg]

>  i wont even use montain lion lol. i will install ESXi right away.

Never say never. It is convenient to use Mountain Lion in a VM.

> thank you for making this posible.

You are welcome. It is threads like this one that make it all worth it.

[HPReg]

> 1. Is the second ISO linked to here (ESXi-5.1-MacMini-SMC-6-2.iso) a temporary solution that may have some issues with OS X run as a VM, and if so, should I wait for an official (or semi-official) fix from VMware?

The ISO will not have any issue with OS X. You can wait for an official fix from VMware, but:

1) It will take a much longer time.

2) It will behave exactly the same.

[BreeeZe]

After lurking for 2 weeks, and getting fed up with my current (core 2 duo / 4gb) esxi server, I ordered a mac mini i7 and 16gb memory today.

Thank you all for the valuable info in this topic and thank you vmware for providing such a great product for free

[Yalvarez]

Sorry, what i meant with that post was that i will never will get to use the mountain lion that comes with the mini pre install

[vSean]

Before you wipe the drive:

Log in to the app store and activate/accept the bundled ilife suite so it gets associated with your apple id, just in case you want to install it later.

Make a usb recover disk for OSX, because you may someday need to apply a bios update, and to do it you'll need to boot into OSX.

[sirozha1]

Associating the software that comes with the 2012 Mac Mini to your Apple ID is a good idea. Not only the iLife suite will get associated, but also the OS X Mountain Lion. Even if you are not going to use the iLife suite, you may want to install Mountain Lion as a VM later on.

The three iLife apps that come with the Mac Mini (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) and OS X Mountain Lion cost $80 in the App store, so you can give them as a gift to someone if you are not going to use them, but you will have to associate them with their Apple ID. Unfortunately, you cannot associate the bundled iLife suite to one Apple ID and Mountain Lion to another one.

[sirozha1]

Is it possible to upgrade the ESXi installation (installed from the original ISO modified for 2012 Mac Mini without the SMC fix) to the one with the SMC fix and have all of my settings preserved or will I have to wipe the HD clean and start from scratch?

Thanks!

[BreeeZe]

telecastle wrote:

Associating the software that comes with the 2012 Mac Mini to your Apple ID is a good idea. Not only the iLife suite will get associated, but also the OS X Mountain Lion. Even if you are not going to use the iLife suite, you may want to install Mountain Lion as a VM later on.

The three iLife apps that come with the Mac Mini (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) and OS X Mountain Lion cost $80 in the App store, so you can give them as a gift to someone if you are not going to use them, but you will have to associate them with their Apple ID. Unfortunately, you cannot associate the bundled iLife suite to one Apple ID and Mountain Lion to another one.

Aren't you confusing iLife with iWork ?
iLife = iPhoto, iMovie & Garageband
Still a good idea to add them to your account before you wipe the machine though