"Non-system disk or disk error" after ESXi 5.1 installation

[goAIC]

Hello

I tried to install ESXi 5.1 on my 16GB SD card. I installed it from an USB Drive and everything went just well until it said that I had to reboot my computer. It said that the installation was completed successfully but when I reboot my PC it says "Non-System disk or disk error".

I tried installing it on a Hard Drive as well, no difference.

Does anyone know this problem or a way to solve it?

Greetings,

David

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community - have you modified the computers BIOS so that it will boot from the SD card -

[goAIC]

Yes I did that. But since I am not able to start it from the HDD as well, I don't think the problem is in the boot options.

[a_p_]

What host hardware do you use? Does the host support booting from GUID partition tables (GPT)?

André

[goAIC]

I use a laptop as host. (It's only for a school project)

The specs are:

HP Compaq 6730b

Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53GHz

4096 MB RAM

150 GB HDD

I don't know if it supports booting from GPT, how can I look that up?

[NagangoudaPatil]

HP Compaq 6730b model not supports boot with USB.

[goAIC]

But if I install it on the hard drive the exact same error message shows up.. ?

Or do you mean I have to install it from a CD?

[a_p_]

When I read your first post I assumed you meant an USB CD-ROM drive!? If not already done, run the installation from the CD please to see whether this works.

André

[goAIC]

No, I booted from an USB flash drive and tried to install it on my SD card. I also tried installing it on the HDD, do difference.

I will try installing from a CD if I can find one, gonna tell you if it worked afterwards.

[goAIC]

Installing from a CD has the exact same effect.

Is there anything else I could try?

[a_p_]

What you may try is to press Shift-O at the installation start screen and then append formatwithmbr to the boot options that show up.

André

[goAIC]

Whe trying to install with "formatwithmbr" I get this warning:

DHCP lookup failed. You may be unable to access this system until you customize its network configuration.

The message shows up when the screen is half-yellow/half-gray.

Do I have to connect the notebook to my network before installing ESXi?

[a_p_]

You should be able to install ESXi anyway. However, without network connection you'll certainly don't get a DHCP lease.

André

[goAIC]

What I wonder about is that I now have the option to Shut Down/Restart the host.

Could this mean that the installation from before was correct and it just couldnt start?

[a_p_]

That's possible. What's the current state? Were you able to install and boot the ESXi host with MBR?

André

[goAIC]

I tried to install with formatwithmbr option and after some time the istallation stopped showing this screen:

http://i.epvpimg.com/u4hJe.jpg

However, in the installation processes before that it always showed that the installation process was successful but after the reboot nothing happened (except non-system disk or disk error screen).

[a_p_]

That's interesting, because this screen only appears once ESXi booted properly!? Please double check that there's nothing in the host's settings, which tries to boot from any other location. Alternatively boot the system from a gParted Live CD and check whether you now have an MBR or GPT partition table and whether the boot partition is marked as active.

André

[goAIC]

I tried booting from every available device in the boot list again now. Disk error message every time.

But when I start with the ESXi CD inserted and choose the Boot from local disk option, I get to the same screen as I posted above, which only appears once ESXi booted properly.

Does this mean something is wrong with my boot options?

[a_p_]

That's why I mentioned gParted to see what's wrong. Maybe it's just an issue with making the boot partition active!?

André

[goAIC]

For some reason my Notebook doesn't let me boot from the gParted live CD either. I tried the CD on another PC, it works fine there.