will this run esx 3.5?

[tdubb123]

PowerEdge T105
(System Identifier: EWR8DJ13)
PowerEdge T105 Server: Dual Core AMD Opteron 1220; 2.8GHz,2X1MB Cache No Operating System
System Price	:	$959.00

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Operating System

No Operating System -

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Memory

8 GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz Dual Ranked (4 DIMMs) -

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Hard Disk Drive

80 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)

80 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM) 2nd Drive -

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Certified Refurbished

Certified Refurbished -

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Base

PowerEdge T105 Server: Dual Core AMD Opteron 1220; 2.8GHz,2X1MB Cache -

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Media Bay

48X CD RW/DVD Combo Drive -

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Hardware Upgrade

Tower Chassis

USB Keyboard

Dell Optical USB 2-button Mouse

[Todd_Simmons]

I puchased the Dell PowerEdge T105 to use for VMware ESX 3.5, and I have experienced the following:

The server has SATA power connectors only, therefore you must use drives that have SATA power. Sure there are adapters to convert SATA power connections, however if you decide to use them you will have to install your hard drive in the 5.25" bay. When attached to the standard hard drive bays the connector will not allow you to close the case.

If you buy a memory upgrade, remember that this model supports 800MHz memory, DDR2 PC2-6400.

There is an onboard USB port that can be used for an ESX Server 3i installation.

I have not been able to successfully use an VMware ESX Server 3.5 Installer CD. The USB Keyboard locks up during installation. The Server does not include PS/2 ports.

You cannot boot from a USB device if the SATA controller is disabled.

If you unplug (not disable) the SATA controller you can boot from the USB device.

If you boot from the USB device and use the nousbboot option by pressing SHIFT+O at the boot menu, you will receive the following error. PANIC: Failed to find SIMULATED boot partition.

If you boot from the USB device, you will receive the following error: PANIC: Failed to find USB partition.

I have attempted the installation with a reliable LSI Logic LSI21320-IS Adapter Card, as well as an Adaptec 29320 PCI-X1 card.

The BIOS offers limited functionality.

[RicStar]

I had the same error as you. I disable the onboard NIC. And install a pci card. I got esx 3.5 installed on my T105. It installed fine with the build in SATA controller. However, you cannot create any VM's on the SATA drive you still need SCSI or an LSI RAID controller for the VMFS.

[gklooste]

I have ESXi 3.5 U2 running now for a couple of months (started just after the time-bomb-bug) on my DELL Poweredge T105.

I wrote about it on my blog on . I am not experiencing any problems with this version of ESX(i). I recognize the issue about the network and SATA controller being unavailable, but this only happens if you use an older version of ESX. Because the internal broadcom networkadapter is relatively new this device is not supported in older versions. I told the BIOS to boot from USB first (If I recall correct, this option is 'hidden' beneath the SATA option).

I have made no modifications to the system other than adding extra memory which I ordered through a local computer store. So no disabling of devices etc. I use local storage at the moment with the SATA controller that's part of the standard configuration (no SAS -RAID controller).

(update: changed url because blog moved to other url)

Message was edited by: gklooste

[seancrookston]

I recently bought a t105 and tried the lates esxi(update 3). It fails with a message PANIC: Failed to find HD boot partition. I'm trying update 2 now as I see that is what the poster above me used and am hoping that will work.

[Birchy]

I recieved my T105, AMD 2GHZ, 2 x 250GB Sata drives, no raid, basic NIC this afternoon. Had ESXi (3.5.0 123629) up and running in about 30 minutes after prepping the USB drive with the image. The system recognized the NIC and Sata controller from the start. I couldn't get the ESXi installable to recognize the USB drive, so I did it the hard way.

I've created 2 datastores (1 on each drive) and am playing with installing Win 2003 Enterprise now in a VM. I have ordered a SAS6/i on Ebay and will install it when I receive it. Since this is only a test environment I'm not worried about RAID but want to have a better controller installed.

[gchamby]

Greetings all. I wanted to share my experiences with ESX on the Dell PowerEdge T105 for what its worth.

System is a PowerEdge T105, BIOS 1.3.2, Dell SAS 6/IR controller (BIOS 6.22.03.00) with two 146 GB SATA drives, Broadcomm NetXtreme

gigabit interface and a quad core AMD Opteron 1352. Everything as shipped from Dell.

I initially attempted to install ESX 3.5 U3 from CD which resulted in a system hang at the "ata3: dev 0 ATAPI, max

UDMA/100" message.

This behavior occurs on all 3.5 update releases - 1, 2, and 3. At this point the system must be power cycled.

Going into the BIOS and disabling the NIC allows the system to move past the above message but it then hangs at the

screen indicating "loading mptscsi_2xx driver".

Again, this happens on all three ESX 3.5 update releases contrary to some of the postings I've seen which seem to suggest older updates work while U3 does not?

Once the hang occurs the system must be power cycled.

Enabling the NIC and booting with the ESX 3.5i U3 CD works perfectly fine. It glides past the "loading mptscsi_2xx" message and comes up as expected.

I assume these issues are all service console related since I was under the impression that the base hypervisor was the same?

Thanks.

[Horinius]

I'm also trying to install ESXi 3.5 U3 in a T105 (like that of Birchy: ie no RAID controller, but having two SATA hard disks). But so far I've been unlucky (or lack of experience). Here's my situation:

When both hard disks are connected, ESXi was installed to the hard disk at port B (! Very strange.

Then if I disconnect port B HD and install ESXi again, at the next boot up, it would write something like "Panic, can't find HD partition"

Anyone has any idea? I've read in this thread that people would boot to USB drive. Is that the only way to install ESXi?

And I've read that it's necessary to disable NIC. Really? Or is it a matter if the NIC isn't connected to any network, so that's why it's better disable the NIC?

[gklooste]

First of all it's important to understand that the chosen hardware is not on the HCL, so it's officially not supported. Having said that, I know that a lot of systems that are not on the list actually do work, with or without some modifications. I tend to keep my environment as close to the original version as possible. Using the T105 with Vmware ESXi is possible as I explained in previous replies and on my blog . Why would you not use ESXi booting from a USB device? The only thing you have to do is change the boot option in the BIOS to boot from USB (and of course create an USB stick with ESXi on it.

[Horinius]

Of course I had understood that my server isn't supported in official HCL.

I didn't try the USB boot method because:

1. that seems quite complicated and I'd like to try the simplest method (CD) first if possible

2. that method seems to change something to the USB drive, and nothing is said if that's serious, what effect that would produce and how to reverse it

3. I don't have USB drive of about 512MB or 1GB. Only 256MB and a 8GB. And I really don't want to destroy my newly bought 8GB if something should go wrong.

4. I had tried a 1GB SD card together with a card reader acting like a USB drive. I also had followed that procedure to this SD card. But I just get a prompt (_) on screen when I boot the server to the USB card reader. Seems like I really need a real USB drive?

[gklooste]

OK, let's see if I can help you with that

ad 1: The easiest way to get ESXi running is to put some effort in getting it on a stick which is quite straight forward and not too difficult if you follow the guidelines. Doing it the CD way, you will run into many more issues you have to solve, that's if they are solvable. There are many links on the web to step-by-step guides on how to get ESXi on a stick.

ad 2: It changes the filesystem on it. But you're able to clean it afterwards, just use a simple stick without any software based features. You can preserve anything on it the same way (only reverse) as the way you're goning to put the ESXi image on it.

ad 3: One of 1GB or bigger will do (haven't treid bigger than 2GB yet though). These media are rather cheap nowadays. I use a Kingston 2GB at the moment. When you have ESXi running you have to leave iot there so why not get a "special" ESXi stick. I mean just buy one solely for that purpose, it will cost you probably less that 10 Euros/Dollars.

ad 4: Never tried something like that before, I doubt it will work because of the devicetype, it differs from a usb stick so you will probably end up with the same issues as with the cd.

Good luck!

[Horinius]

ad 3: One of 1GB or bigger will do (haven't treid bigger than 2GB yet though). These media are rather cheap nowadays. I use a Kingston 2GB at the moment. When you have ESXi running you have to leave iot there so why not get a "special" ESXi stick. I mean just buy one solely for that purpose, it will cost you probably less that 10 Euros/Dollars.

I have to leave it (the USB drive) there? You mean after "installation", the USB drive is still necessary? Well, in that case, I wouldn't call it "installation"....

Is that the same situation for CD? I mean, after installation, do I need to leave the CD inside the CD drive? I don't think so, because before reboot, it's written on the screen that I have to remove any CD from the system. No?

[gklooste]

OK, lets take one step back.

There are two ways to run ESXi.

1. Run it from harddrive. Installed on a harddisk using the ESXi installable which is available for download from VMware's website using a CD.

2. Run it from a USB stick. Installed on a stick using the procedure which is described here: this also uses the downloadable ESXi installable.

option 1 uses a local harddrive to install it on

option 2 runs from the USB device without touching the local drive(s) and removing it during operation will cause issues i.e. logs are written to the usb-device

[Horinius]

I managed to borrow a 4GB USB drive from a friend. I then followed the procedure again, but I still can't make it boot!

Then I re-read the whole procedure (actually the whole page) and I spotted the last comment. Someone said he needed the "-sma" options with syslinux. I tried this first with my "SD Card + Card Reader" and you know what, this time my "SD Card + Card Reader" booted!

However, VMWare Hypervisor took a long time, really really long time to load. It took more than 30 minutes to load before installation could start! It seems like it's using USB1 transfer rate instead of USB2 (both card reader and USB host are in USB2, I'm 100% sure of this). Anyway, I let it go through everything up to reboot, but this time I got "Missing operatig system. Operatig System not found" message! (discussion below)

But for the sack of "scientific spirit", I took my friend's 4GB USB drive, made it bootable using syslinux (and the -sma options, of course) and tried again. Hmm, loading of VMware Hypervisor is once again very very slow. It's been more than 25 minutes and only about 66% is loaded! I could go on, but I suspect I'll get the same "Missing operatig system. Operatig System not found" message again after reboot......

2. Run it from a USB stick. Installed on a stick using the procedure which is described here: this also uses the downloadable ESXi installable.

option 1 uses a local harddrive to install it on

option 2 runs from the USB device without touching the local drive(s) and removing it during operation will cause issues i.e. logs are written to the usb-device

I'm a bit confused...... or we misunderstood one another...? I don't want to install ESXi to a USB drive, but I want to install ESXi from a USB drive to the hard disk. Is this possible?

[Horinius]

An update to my progress:

After waiting for more than 40 minutes to install from my friend's 4GB USB drive, I got the same "Missing operatig system. Operatig System not found" .... exactly as what I had predicted....

[gklooste]

Just to check: are you using the USB to run ESXi or are you trying to install it from the USB.

Which procedure are you talking about, the piece above?

[Horinius]

Of course the latter. That's what I've been talking about ever since: installation, not execution.

[gklooste]

There you have it! It's a large misunderstanding...

When talking about USB sticks and ESXi people are refering to the "execution" of ESXi not installation. The procedure "how to run esxi from a USB stick" is about execution not installation.

So with installation ESXi you will have the same issues as with "the full version". Conclusion at this moment execution of esxi from usb does work (out of the box without modifications) and installation on other media will not work or needs some modification (maybe injection of drivers).

[Horinius]

Yes, there's been a big misunderstanding, and I had insisted on that before by saying "...You mean after installation, the USB drive is still necessary? Well, in that case, I wouldn't call it installation...." but you just thought I was talking about execution, unfortunately. Actually, in this whole thread, some people are talking about installation, some about execution, and all by just saying "boot from USB". Very confusing. Anyway....

I want to put everything inside the HD. That's my point.

Yes, I had tried all possible ways of installation I could imagine, like plugging a USB CD Drive and install from it. All gives the same result, unfortunately. But it seems ESXi 3.5 U4 is out and it has better support for SATA controller. At least I could find its release note. But I just can't find the ISO image of this U4. Probably there's a time difference between publishing release note and releasing the product...

Right now, I have to use this temporary solution of booting ESXi O/S from a SD card (within a card reader).