ESXi Installation on HP DL360 G5

[bytesector]

Hi there,

I installed ESXi on an HP DL360 G5 in our lab today. I just have two 146GB drives running in RAID 0 in the unit to provide some testing space.

After installation, I found that no default datastores had been created. When I look at the Configuration tab in the vSphere client, I see nothing listed under Storage > Datastores (as expected). Under Storage > Devices, I see the hard drive with 4 primary partitions and 1 secondary (see below for break down):

Primary Partitions: Capacity

1. DOS 16-bit <32M 4.00MB
2. DOS 16-bit >=32M 4.00GB
3. VMFS 268.53GB
4. Extended 896.00MB

Secondary Partitions: Capacity
1. DOS 16-bit >=32M 250MB

I get confused because there is a large VMFS partition in which I should be able to create a datastore. Unfortunately, when I click "Add Storage", select "Disk/LUN", grab the local VMWare Disk and set a name, set maximum capacity and click Finish, it tells me:

"Error during the configuration of the host: Failed to update disk partition information."

Now I realize it may be trying to use the entire disk as the new datastore when it should only be using that one VMFS partition. But my question / problem is that I don't know how to get the datastore created.

I've installed ESXi on a single 160GB SATA hard drive and it creates a datastore automatically after installation without problem. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Please help.

Thanks!

Chris.

[DSTAVERT]

Did you use the HP version of ESXi. Which controller do you have? 200 or 400. Did you get the BBWC option? Controller RAM?

Try installing ESXi to a USB stick. You have an internal USB port specifically for that purpose.

[DSeaman]

Well on a HP DL360 G6 and ESXi 4.0, I can easily create a datastore on the remaining space on the boot RAID array. So ESXi is smart enough to only use any remaining space. I'd install ALL HP firmware updates, and in particular any smart array updates. I'd then blow away the RAID configuration in the smart array controller and re-install ESXi. I'd also suggest you use the HP 4.0 U1 ESXi bundle as well.