Kind of boots but stops

[gmopic]

I just installed ESX 4i from a bootable CD onto a server with two PERC 5/i RAID cards. The installation seem to work fine. As a note I installed the new software over top of an old ESX 3.5 installation I was not using. When I reboot, the server does its POST stuff then I get the "Loading VMware Hypervisor" then I get the half black half yellow screen where stuff starts to load. I get to the point where I see "vfat loaded successfully" where it pauses for about a minute. Then I get a fully black screen as follows:

ESXi 4.0

failed to load tpm

failed to find boot partition

--- end ---

I don't know what is going on because it clearly starts to boot. Any ideas would help. Thanks

[COdlk]

The PERC 5/i RAID controller is not supported by ESX 4i. I ran into the same problem with the PERC 6/i controller.

david

[savantsingh]

Then its the controller issue.

[COdlk]

I would bet that if you downloaded ESX 4 and did the install it would perfectly.

david

[gmopic]

Is it supported by ESX 3i by chance?

[microkid]

Dell Perc 5/i not supported? What have you been drinking? The Dell Perc 5/i (and 6) is on the ESXi HCL on the VMware site.

And I know, because my system is running ESXi with a Dell Perc 5/i and it runs great!

[COdlk]

ESX 4i? According to the HCL the PERC 5/i is supported on ESX 3i but not ESX 4i.

david

[microkid]

Copied from the HCL page:

DELL Dell PERC 5/i Adapter Dell SAS/SATA-RAID ESX 4.0 7 , ESX 3.5 U43 , ESX 3.5 U33 , ESX 3.5 U23 , ESX 3.5 U13 , ESX 3.53 , ESXi 3.5 Embedded3 , ESXi 3.5 Installable U13 , ESXi 3.5 Installable3 , ESX 3.0.39 , ESX 3.0.2 U19 , ESX 3.0.28 , ESX 3.0.18 , ESX 3.08

[COdlk]

Like I said no ESX 4i.

david

[microkid]

Well, if it runs on ESX 4.0 it also runs on ESXi

[savantsingh]

Yes i saw the HCL the controller is supported.

Do this:

Boot the ESX host in console/debug mode.

esxcfg-boot -p

esxcfg-boot -b

Reboot the esx.

See if you get any joy.

Have you tried rebuilding the host did you get the same issue??

Hope this helps

Thanks

[gmopic]

Why do you think ESX 4 (vs ESX4i) would work?

[COdlk]

Because the Perc 5/i is supported on ESX 4 but NOT on ESX 4i. I ran into the same problem. Installed fine but could not boot after install. Tried ESX 4 no problem.

david

[gmopic]

Newbie here so sorry for dumb question... How do I boot into console/debug?

Do I hit some key combo when I see the yellow and black screen?

[DSTAVERT]

ALT + F1

Type "unsupported" (will not echo to the screen)

at the prompt enter the root password.

To return to the yellow screen ALT + F2

[Scissor]

Because the Perc 5/i is supported on ESX 4 but NOT on ESX 4i. I ran into the same problem. Installed fine but could not boot after install. Tried ESX 4 no problem.

Interesting. I have a Perc 5/e running under ESX 4i. I had assumed that the 5/e was the same card as the 5/i, just with an external connector, but I might be wrong.

[microkid]

You're correct. Technically, they are the same. And I wonder why the 5/i is not on the ESXi HCL while the 5/e is. I have a 5/i running with ESXi 4.0 fine, and read numerous other posts of people doing the same. The support for the Dell Perc 5 series was the reason for me to buy one, and it would be a shame if VMware dropped that support. Maybe the HCL is not up to date yet?