3.02 to 3.5 upgrade problem - won't detect previous installation

[sasmith]

Hi! We're upgrading from 3.02 to 3.5 via the cdrom upgrade method, so that we can avoid the missing rpms issue. However, the cd rom installation does see the partition slices that we created by following vmwares best practices guide for sizing things like /boot, /var, /usr, /tmp, and so on.

So basically when I run the esx install, I never get the "upgrade" option. I tried it with both the graphical install and the text install. We boot from local disks, and use a SAN for vmfs storage. Currently have those fiber cables out, so that we don't install on san lun by accident.

Does anyone know what the installation cd is looking for specifically to determine whether or not there is a previous installation? Is there any way to trick it into seeing our installation?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have

Dave K.

[philip8]

Hello,

I recently did some 3.02 to 3.5 upgrades on HP machines without any problem. Can you tell what hardware you are running on?

Philip

[philip8]

Hello,

On second thought, we recently installed some new hardware into our vmware datacenter. When you have 2 or more servers in a cluster, you might delete the server which you want to upgrade, after migrating the virtual machines running on it. After that do a clean 3.5 installation and add the new server into the vmware cluster. Maybe you might want to create an extra cluster where you can put 3.5 servers into it, and do a step by step migration (one server at a time) from 3.0 to 3.5.

I'm not sure about the virtual center. You might want it upgraded from 2.x to 2.5.

Philip

[kjb007]

If you don't see the upgrade option, I would suggest using the tarball update method instead. You can get a zip image to upgrade from 3.0 to 3.5, and then you'll need another 3.5 to 3.5U1. Then, use update manager to bring up to current level. It seems like a long process, but the tarball goes through pretty quickly.

-KjB