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malimal
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi wont boot..Z87 sabertooth

I followed the instruction in this post below:

ESXi 5.1U, Z87-PRO, Adaptec ASR-6805E

I have:

i5-4670K CPU

Asus Sabertooth z87 motherboard

Onboard Nic..hence i used the directions from the above post.

ESXi 5.5 installed successfully.

but when it goes to boot, i just get a cursor that goes back and forth, then i am sent back to the bios..

any help is appreciated...

I tried install to a usb and a SSD, both boot with the same issue.

I enabled CSM and selected other OS for secure boot.

i also did the formatwithmdr switch when installing.

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14 Replies
Jayden56
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi

Welcome to the communities.

Please attach below log file

/var/log/vmksummary.log

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fabiogoma
Contributor
Contributor

Same problem here, after a successful installation, the boot doesn't start to boot the ESXi.

Instead of booting properly, the UEFI (Bios) shows up like I didn't have any OS installed

Anyone facing the same problem?

PS.: It's not possible to get log files since the boot never happen.

Thanks in advance

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jdirksen
Contributor
Contributor

Dear VMware community,

I had the same issue as the original post, able to install esxi 5.1 or 5.5 but could not boot into esxi after the install, it would fail to read the install and return me back to the bios menu.

hardware:

Asus Z87 Sabertooth

Intel i7-4770

24 GB RAM (2x8, 2x4)

Intel Gigabit CT desktop adapter

Adaptec 3405 raid card

WD Green 2 TB HDD x 4

I followed the guide below to inject the system board drivers into my esxi 5.5 hypervisor iso.

ESXi 5.1U, Z87-PRO, Adaptec ASR-6805E

Then used the application rufus to create a install media on an usb stick.

Booted from the usb stick, without any other drives attached to the system board.

Installed esxi 5.5 on the usb stick, using formatmbr on the boot option.

After all that, I was able to boot esxi 5.5 Hypervisor on my test system.

Time to upgrade my hdd's and go crazy... Smiley Happy

Thank you for all the help.

Jason

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newagama
Contributor
Contributor

Hi jdirksen,

I have a very similar setup like yours:

Asus Z97 Sabertooth

intel i7-4770

32GB RAM (4x8)

Intel Gigabit CT desktop adapter

1x500G WD HDD

I have customized the ESXi 5.5 U1 ISO with the intel driver for the LAN card and driver for the on-board  SATA. I managed to install the ESXi on the 500GB. ESXi wont boot and gave me the secure boot violation.

In BIOS i have disabled secure boot and enabled CSM and turned on virtual computing in CPU. But still the ESXi wont boot. this time when i boot ESX i was just turned back to BIOS screen

Should i re-install the ESXi with the formatmbr option even i am not booting from USB stick?

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Morgolis
Contributor
Contributor

Turn off the Secure Boot feature - I ran in to the same problem with my ASUS Z97-AR board.  Enter BIOS, go to 'Boot' --> Scroll down to Secure Boot menu then disable it.  Make sure you set the OS Type to "Other OS".

If you're booting to USB, there are some other things you have to do in BIOS as well.

Under Advanced --> USB Configuration set the following:

  1. Legacy USB Support --> Enabled
  2. Intel xHCI Mode --> Smart Auto
  3. EHCI Hand-off --> Enabled

Under Boot --> Hard Drive BBS Priorities you have to set your 2nd boot option to be the "Flash Disk (XXXX MB)" - DO NOT use the UEFI: Flash Disk (XXXX MB) one.

You'll be able to install to USB and boot from USB.

Hope this helps!

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sbarbier
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

Is it the same driver for Asus Z97 Pro motherboard? I'm looking for the sata drivers as my HDD and SSd are not detected by esxi 5.5 u1 installer.

Where did you find the packages?

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Morgolis
Contributor
Contributor

You'll have to create a customized, community supported ISO build if you're installing ESXi to the SSD, and include the VIB from here:

http://vibsdepot.v-front.de/depot/bundles/sata-xahci-1.20-1-offline_bundle.zip

If you're not installing to the SSD then you just need to get the VIB from here:  http://vibsdepot.v-front.de/wiki/index.php/Sata-xahci

You can read about how I built my ISO here:  http://www.vmware.ninja/create-a-community-supported-esxi-iso-build-with-powershell-cli/

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edwinlcf2
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I hv the same problem (cannot boot up), after the successful installation ...

CPU: Intel Core i5 4460 CPU (3.1 Ghz,6M)

Motherboard: ASUS H97 plus

Home ESXi - ASUS H97 Plus [Problem]

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edwinlcf2
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Cannot boot up .. How can I get the logs?

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edwinlcf2
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I turned the BIOS settings on my ASUS H97 Plus, but that is still cannot boot up, after the successful installation

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mescator
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

I've had similar issue with Z-87 Plus. My configuration:

- Asus Z-87 Plus

- i7-4770K

- 4x8GB Geil DDR3-1600 9-9-9-28

- NIC: Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual Port

- Storage: Adaptec by PMC accraid 6405 (internal) with 4x1TB in RAID-1E

Original ISO did not recognize the array showing no storage. First I've patched the ISO with accraid driver provided by VMWare:
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESXI55-PMC-AACRAID-52140301&productId=353

using VMware Front Experience: ESXi-Customizer, and updated RAID BIOS to 19147.

This let me go one step forward and installer recognized the storage so I was able to follow installation.

After installation however the ESXi did not boot and BIOS page pop up.

I made numerous attempts to configure boot process disabling or enabling different setting occasionally being able to boot the system,

but always failing to boot after shutdown. What I've noticed is that VMWare provides UEFI image, so I made mistake disabling UEFI boot during all these experiments.

However simply enabling UEFI did not help. After all, I decided to upgrade motherboard BIOS, to version 2103.
After upgrade, the only options that I've changed was:
- CPU Virtualization -> Enabled
- Boot -> Quick boot -> Disabled
- Boot order: (1) 6405 (2...) Disabled

From now on ESXi boots every time, attaching BIOS

screenshots and boot captures for reference.

Hope this helps a bit.

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mescator
Contributor
Contributor

Recently I made up another machine with ESXi 5.5 u2.

ASUS P9DWS

i7-4790

32GB RAM (4x8GB GEIL DDR3-1866)
Adaptec Raid 5405 + 4xWD RED in Raid-6 (1.8TB)

I run into the same problem as before with Z-87 Plus. This time however none of settings in firmware (BIOS/UEFI) helped.

It seems that there is some sort of incompatibility between Adaptec/Asus/VMware that forbids recognition of UEFI boot

on first partition VMware installer installs.

I've checked layout of partitions on previously installed machines. 4.1 has MBR boot, all other 5.1/5.1 have GPT system.

So I queried for MBR, and it turned out that there is a switch in the installation process of VMWare ESXi to do this.

Instruction: (somewhere from this forum)

Shorty after boot from CDROM, press Shift-O for Options.

To the command line add "formatwithmbr" (don't include quotes)

This does the trick. The layout after installation is MBR and motherboard recognizes bootable partition on disk array

and boots correctly.

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misterTi
Contributor
Contributor

It worked by adding "formatwithmbr" switch. It can be explained more easily than "early in the installation process". When installing from usb, after boot, you will get a screen to select an option to run. Select the desired option and press tab, then add the switch to the end and press enter to apply.

This won't work doing upgrade (after it has obviously failed for anyone looking for a solution to this problem), you need to reinstall completely by recreating the vmfs partitions.

This solution worked on my customized image i had to create for 5.5 u2 by adding e1000 ethernet driver and ahci sata driver for intel Z97 chipset (Asrock Z97 Pro4)

Thx for info.

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Steineiche
Contributor
Contributor

Just for the records of this discussion: I own the ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 / Intel i7 Haswell. I had trouble booting ESXi 5.5 U2 from GPT-partitioned disks (custom image Intel i218, ahci).

However, installing the OS on the GPT-disk from DVD-media was no problem whatsoever. When re-starting after successful installation, the message (not exact) "no bootable media - install proper boot media" came up. A test installation using the "fromatwithmbr" option as mentioned in this thread and booting from disk afterwards worked without problem. What helped at the end to fix the issue was a firmware-upgrade of the ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 board to newest firmware level. Booting ESXi 5.5 U2 now works from GPT partitioned disks.

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