VMWare ESXi 4.1 on DELL PowerEdge T105

[Jesus0190]

Hello,

I have a problem with ESXi 4.1 on a DELL PowerEdge T105 Server. I can install it normally and start it, but he does not recognize any Harddisks as potential Datastore.

I installed from ESXi 4.1 (260247) Installable CD and from two different ESXi 4.1 (260247) Customized Dell Installer CD. Everytime theres the same problem after installation. It boots just fine and i can login through vSphere Client, but when I change something in it or on the Console Admin Menu (like the password) the changes doesn't survive a reboot. A new SSL-Certificate is also generated in every boot, so it looks like the system by itself can not write to harddisk anyways.

The SATA Controller is recognized as "PowerEdge T105 Serial ATA" and the CD-Drive is available but not the two harddrives. (They appear in BIOS and on installation process!). I made a screenshot from my Storage configuration... vmhba33 is CD and vmhba0 and vmhba1 should be the HDDs.

Maybe someone has some tipps for me or has solved a similar problem on any other hardware.

Thanks for all support

Bastian

[AndreTheGiant]

Welcome to the community.

Maybe you can find some hint on this site:

http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/Hardware_support.php

PS: disks are in RAID? If yes have you tried to disable the RAID feature (if is software does not work).

Andre

[Ron_Sharon]

Have you solved this, I have the same problam

[Dave_Mishchenko]

What sort of BIOS options do you have for SATA controller?

[Ron_Sharon]

ATA and Off, it is now on ATA when I do off it dose not boot

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Whats the PCI id for it  http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/find_PCI_ID.php

[Ron_Sharon]

I think this is it:

000:000:07.0 Mass storage controller: nVidia Corporation PowerEdge T105 Serial A                                                                                                 TA [vmhba0]
000:000:08.0 Mass storage controller: nVidia Corporation PowerEdge T105 Serial A                                                                                                 TA [vmhba1]

[krishnaprasad]

can you post /var/log/messages from your system right after first boot?

[Ron_Sharon]

Mar  9 22:12:02 syslogd started: BusyBox v1.9.1-VMware-visor-klnext-2965
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmklogger: Successfully daemonized.
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 0 cpu0:0)Init: 245: cpu 0: early measured tsc speed is 2009258823 Hz
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 38402 cpu0:0)Cpu: 316: id1.version 40f33
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 45587 cpu0:0)CPUAMD: 193: Detecting xapic on AMD_K8:tcr = 0xf2ec820
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 54487 cpu0:0)CPUAMD: 330: effective family = 15
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 58203 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1139: initial APICID=0x0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 61749 cpu0:0)CPUAMD: 671: Microcode patch level 0x0000.
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 65784 cpu0:0)CPUAMD: 634: MSR_K7_HWCR was 2000040
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 70105 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1391: 40 physical bits, 48 virtual bits
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 74293 cpu0:0)CPUAMD: 815: MSR_K8_SYSCFG is 760601
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 77717 cpu0:0)CPUAMD: 827: MSR_K8_TOPMEM2 is 130000000
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 81545 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1923: MTRR: cap=0x508 with 8 variable MTRRs on BSP 0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 86642 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1959: MTRR: deftype=0xc00, enabled bit=1 and default type=0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 92079 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1678: Variable MTRR 0: start=0x0 mask=0xff80000800 end=0x0 type=0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 98307 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1678: Variable MTRR 1: start=0x0 mask=0xffc0000800 end=0x0 type=0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 103601 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1678: Variable MTRR 2: start=0x0 mask=0xfff0000800 end=0x0 type=0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 110668 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0x0 type=0x606060606060606
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 116888 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0x80000 type=0x606060606060606
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 122252 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xa0000 type=0x0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 126292 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xc0000 type=0x505050505050505
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 131435 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xc8000 type=0x5050505
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 135810 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xd0000 type=0x0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 139545 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xd8000 type=0x0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 143248 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xe0000 type=0x505050500000000
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 148292 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xe8000 type=0x505050505050505
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 153322 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xf0000 type=0x505050505050505
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 158342 cpu0:0)Cpu: 1831: start=0xf8000 type=0x505050505050505
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 564980 cpu0:0)Cpu: 197: type 4
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 576405 cpu0:0)Cpu: 198: numCores 2, numHT 1
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 579542 cpu0:0)Cpu: 200: L2 cache : size 1048576, assoc. 16
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 583420 cpu0:0)Cpu: 202: L3 cache : size -1, assoc. -1
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 589657 cpu0:0)Init: 252: BSP Apic ID: 0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68176626 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1914: found RSDP @ 0xffff8100000f79b0 RSDT @ 0xcfef0f9b XSDT @ 0x00000000cfef0ffb
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68187005 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1774: valid XSDT @ 0xcfef0ffb
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68194742 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1774: valid SRAT @ 0xcfef4c7a
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68202148 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1978: Couldn't find DMAR
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68206831 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1774: valid APIC @ 0xcfef4f7a
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68212456 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1774: valid HPET @ 0xcfef4f42
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68217816 cpu0:0)ACPI: 1774: valid FACP @ 0xcfef4507
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68221728 cpu0:0)ACPI: 2012: RTC Century Byte NVRAM offset: 0x32
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68354661 cpu0:0)VGAConsole: 394: start b8000 end c0000
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68359783 cpu0:0)VGAConsole: 406: 0xffff8100000b8000
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 68364703 cpu0:0)VGAConsole: 281: 16 pixels high
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 70764952 cpu0:0)VGAConsole: 586: Sucess: 8 screens
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 70769581 cpu0:0)ACPI: 2478: iapcBootArch = 0x0000
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 70773238 cpu0:0)Keyboard: 169: keyboard disabled in ACPI FADT
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 82063189 cpu0:0)Starting VMKernel initialization ...
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 82104668 cpu0:0)BootConfig: 20: coresPerPkg = 0
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 82107874 cpu0:0)BootConfig: 21: useNUMAInfo = TRUE
Mar  9 22:12:02 vmkernel: TSC: 82111349 cpu0:0)BootConfig: 22: measureNUMALatency = FALSE

[krishnaprasad]

I think you are talking about 2 problems here:-

1. The changes is not persistent across reboots

2. The harddrive is not shown in the storage adapters section.

For the second one, you may have to add a VMFS volume to show it in the storage adapters section.  the storage adapters description ( vmhba0 in your case ) may not show anything else other than VMFS.

By the way, i see that Dell dont have this server listed under their compatibility matrix w.r.t ESX 4.x support. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/eslvmwre/VS/docs/compat/Com_Mat.pdf

Worth checking with Dell w.r.t the compatibility w.r.t ESX and hardware support.

[Ron_Sharon]

it is a very strange thing, when I run the command "fdisk -l" no hard drives show up, it is like the system is installed but it's not recognizing itself

I have also took this message from the logs: "SATA link down (SStatus ffffffff SControl ffffffff)"

[Dave_Mishchenko]

But you can see the drives during the install? I would access the console during the install and run lspci -p (it'll show which driver is being used).  Do the same after the install and ESXi has booted normally.  It may be that one driver is used during the install and another post-install.

[johnHannan]

I am having exeactly the same problem now with ESXi 5.0. Did you ever resolve this?