unable to install VMware ESXi 4.0 on RAID1

[c20let]

Hi to everyone,

I have a Dell optiplex 755 having 2 sata harddisks configured as RAID1 from the BIOS (hardware RAID). For a funny reason during the installation, VMware ask to select a harddisk where to put all the files. The problem is that it ask me to choose from 2 hdds instead of showing one harddisk (RAID1).

I tried to select anyway one of them and the installation continued normally but when I reboot the PC the machine will state "no operating system found"

I also remove the RAID and tried the same installation. It just worked smoothly till the end and obviously even when I rebooted it worked.

Can anyone give me an advise what I can do to make hardware RAID available for VMware??

thanks

[norregaard]

Sounds like the RAID configuration is not done right. Normally, when you have two or more disks in a RAID, VMware ESX will only see one disk. So maybe take second look at the RAID setup..

[java_cat33]

The installer doesn't detect your RAID controller hence not being supported - you could try installed ESX (not ESXi) and provide the SCSI controller driver when prompted.

To make hardware RAID available for your ESX install you'll need to use supported hardware. Apart from that, some unsupported hardware does work also....

[c20let]

Thanks for your quick reply.

No the RAID is quite straight forward to configure. In fact the bios of the raid controller shows the name of the RAID and it states that RAID 1 is in Normal RAID operation.

That's why I 'm asking as it is very strange issue.

any more ideas??

[java_cat33 · Accepted solution]

Yes the RAID might be easy to configure - but not all RAID controllers are supported by VMware (hence you seeing two disks instead of one when trying to install ESXi).

The link I sent you before can be used to determine supported hardware etc.

[microkid]

Onboard ICHx chipset raidcontrollers are not supported. ESXi will only see the separate drives, not the raid volume. You must use a hardware raid controller which is on the HCL, like the Dell Perc series or HP P400.