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jabbyjim
Contributor
Contributor

Unable to get ESXI 6.5 to see hard drives (after flash drive install)

Greetings,

I know enough to be dangerous here but ran into a bit of a snag. I have installed ESXI 6.5 on an old Alienware Aurora and I used a flash drive to install the software on (which works great) but I cannot get it to recognize my two SATA Hard Drives that are seen by BIOS (and other operating systems) without issue. I tried several things (formatting the HD's in several ways, messing with the BIOS, even installing a few VIBS that I thought would help after the fact to no effect. Am I missing something? I would rather not build a new install if I can help it (since its already installed and I believe you can just keep loading VIBS?)

Is this just simply a driver issue, and if it is, is it just a matter of getting the correct .VIB file to do what I need to do? I have been searching google like crazy and just keep coming up with more VIBS but nothing specific to my hard drives. Is it perhaps the HD controller I should be getting drivers to? I am completely lost. My previous installs on other systems have never had this problem.

BIOS shows

--------------------

ST2000DM001-9Y Seagate Barracuda 2tb

ST3000DM001-1C Seagate Desktop 3tb

Tried changing lots in BIOS, even tried to RAID which made no difference either. The only thing it can see is my flash.

Here are all the drivers ... was hopeful to find a section that says "VMWARE DRIVERS" but I assume that never happens.

Alienware Aurora Alx Drivers | Dell driver download

I would be most thankful for a point in the right direction, thanks!

5 Replies
peetz
Leadership
Leadership

Hi Jim,

welcome to the forums!

You need driver support for your controller, not the hard disks. ESXi 6.5 has generic support for SATA controllers in AHCI mode. So please make sure that your disk controller is set to AHCI mode.

If this doesn't work or results in performance issues with the controller/disks then please refer to my blog post here: https://www.v-front.de/2013/11/how-to-make-your-unsupported-sata-ahci.html

- Andreas

Twitter: @VFrontDe, @ESXiPatches | https://esxi-patches.v-front.de | https://vibsdepot.v-front.de
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roblangston
Contributor
Contributor

Sorry to thread hijack, I have a similar issue, ESXi 6.5a.  My 4 port Syba PCIe card (88SE9230) vanishes when disabling the vmw-ahci driver due to performance issues.  I have tried installing the sata-xahci vib which makes the controller ports visible but I have 4 hdds attached and these are not shown.  Another thing is when ESXi boots with sata-xahci, the loading AHCI part takes about 5 mins when it took 10 seconds previously.  Any ideas?

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jabbyjim
Contributor
Contributor

ok that helps.. somewhat, thank you peetz! I am determined to get this working but I am running out of ideas .. well technically I did run out of ideas again. AHCI mode, ok that's what I chose for most of my trial and error attempts.

You know what's funny.. I have been looking at your blog post way before I resorted to asking for help here. I only got so far, unfortunately.  I did try the cut and paste in the blog, and it least accepted it in the shell but after the reboot, nothing.

I'm confused what to do after this point even after I do the "lspci -v" and see the unsupported SATA controller in question. So if the current sata-xahci does not contain my controller in question how do I get it added, or can I make my own VIB or is it more complicated then that?

also:

I saw some forums talk about trying RAID mode but that certainly got me no where as well. I even installed an HP Raid card and used that for the SATA drives that I had kicking around but that didn't help either.


so here is what I got running the lspi


[root@localhost:~] lspci -v | grep "Class 0106" -B 1

0000:00:1f.2 SATA controller Mass storage controller: Intel Corporation Patsburg 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller [vmhba0]

         Class 0106: 8086:1d02

so is there a VIB for this? or does this have to be added to sata-xahci? or is it too late for that? Thanks for any help!

roblangston
Contributor
Contributor

Just an update to this issue, I replaced the Syba card with an alternative which uses the Asmedia 1062 chipset and everything is working as expected.  The Asmedia card is only two internal ports but this coupled with the 2 x 6Gbps ports on the motherboard is enough for my drives.

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haojp
Contributor
Contributor

I have same problem, have you solved ?

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