Upgrade ESXi 4.1 to 5.1 using update manager error.

[valor88]

Hi all, currently i am trying to upgrade my esxi 4.1 hosts to 5.1 using the update manager.

However while upgrading, the event log throws the "unable to connect to host" and "unable to reconnect to host" message.

When we proceed to the actual server and use the console, This message was on the screen.

"error:file://ks.cfg:line 3: upgrade specified, but ESX version of version 4.0 or greater was not found on disk:mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0. A direct upgrade from ESX/ESXi on this system to ESXI 5.0.0 is not supported"

This message is weird to me, as my hosts are currently esxi 4.1. And the upgrade image that I used was the HP customized image 5.1 U1. I haved tried googling but have gotten no results. Could someone PLEASE tell me if I'm doing something wrong?

I got the image from https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=HP-ESXI-5.1.0U1-GA-25APR2013&productId=327

And my hosts are the HP DL380 G6.

[dhanarajramesh]

what version of vcenter update manager your using ? for your info:  Update Manager 5.0 is capable of upgrading ESX/ESXi 4.0 and 4.1 hosts to ESXi 5.0. Update Manager is not capable of upgrading an ESX 4.0 host to ESX 4.1. Update Manager 5.1 can upgrade ESX 4.0, 4.1 and 5.0 hosts to ESXi 5.1

[valor88]

Hi! Thanks for the response. We have just upgraded our vcenter to 5.1 and atr using update manager 5.1

[dhanarajramesh]

I found HP web page that says the reason "The issue occurs because there is a missing VMware script or executable in VMware ESX 4.x that checks for the hardware vendor of the current system, causing the upgrade tool to receive a blank string for the vendor." HP does not support VMware vCenter Update Manager (VUM) with installations performed using HP custom image upgrades of VMware ESX 4.x to VMware ESXi 5.x. please read this web page
"http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?sp4ts.oid=4142934&spf..."

[valor88]

Oh my I seemed to have missed that. But error stated on the webpage seems to differ from mine. The screenshot displayed seems to show the compliance scan details where the error is found. However in my case the compliance scan did not show that particular error. It did display some third party driver issue but that seems to be unrelated to my issue here. My error is displayed on the esxi host itself.

i am unsure if they are the same issue? But since it is unsupported I will try upgrading by booting from the CD and see how it goes

[valor88]

Hi, I just read through the document that was linked, but I just realised that it was refering to ESX 4.x, and not ESXi 4.x. This means that ESXi should be supported right?

If thats the case then I'm back to square 1