GP exeption pink screen on ESXi5 install

[bonne1]

I was trying to update ESXi 4.1 to ESXi 5.0 hypervisor, but ended up in a pink screen of death. The error said:

#GP exeption 13 in world 2157:bootstrap.

Motherboard is an ASUS P5N7A-VM - running ESXi 4.1 without any problems.

Everything perifery is disabled except the onboard NIC. No IDE, ATA, Sound, no nothing.

VT enabled.

Is it possible to run ESXi 5.0 on this board?

Regards, Lars.

[djak44]

I cannot see why it wont be supported since it runs 4.1, I suggest you backup and do a fresh install. As you are aware if you need to use all esxi5 features like VMFS5.

DJ

[clementwong]

It seems your error is related to a General Protection Fault exception which occurs when:

1) Whatever is being requested does not belong to the program requesting it, and it is also not mapped to the program memory

2) Or the program you are running, which is probably the installer, does not have rights to perform a read or write operation on the page

It can be often caused by a hardware or software issue. What you could do, is perform a root cause analysis from VMware. But you can't do this as you need access to protected source code and analysis tools. But you can collect diagnostics information from your ESX host and submit a support request to VMware.

Alternatively, you can just backup your VMs to a NFS and do a fresh install of ESXi 5.

More information on exceptions can be found here -> http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102018...

Cheers,

Clement

[MaartenHolland]

Hi bonne1,

Did you ever get this to work?

I've tried to install both ESXi 4.1 update 1 and 5.1 from CD but my SATA drives are not recognized by the installer. Did you use the integrated SATA controller for your 4.1 installation or added another controller?

I'm also using the Asus P5N7A-VM motherboard with integrated controller and tried SATA, AHCI and RAID but still no luck.

Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance,

Maarten

[bonne1]

Yes, I got it working - and it is running as we speak.

I firmwareupgraded the BIOS to the latest and loaded system default after firmwareupgrade.

I don't know if it was the one or the other that did the trick.

Regards, Lars.

[MaartenHolland]

Hello Lars,

Thank you for taking the time to reply! I was about to give up, but this sounds promising!

I'll give it a try tomorrow. I assume you mean the BIOS defaults?

And to clarify: you are using the default sata controller, right?

Thanks again,

Maarten

[MaartenHolland]

I have no idea what's wrong here...

I've upgraded the BIOS to the most "recent" version (0519 from May 14 2010) and reset the BIOS to factory defaults.

ESXi5 still won't see my SATA drives. I've tried several drives (500 GB and 1,5 TB) with both SATA and AHCI settings in BIOS.

The drives don't really need to be empty to be recognized by the installer do they?

If anyone has anymore hints that would be highly appreciated. If not, I'm affraid I'll have to continue using XenServer.

Thanks again,

Maarten

[bonne1]

No, I am not using the SATA controller. I am running iSCSI and the system boots from a USB.

Regards, Lars.