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mattinator
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

ESX 3i and PowerEdge 2950

I tried to install ESX 3i on a RAID 1 partition that is running on a PERC 5i controller. The initial install was successful but when it booted it gave me a Kernel Panic error that it could not find the HD partition. I was wondering if someone could confirm that this is because you cannot put it on a RAID 1 mirror and it has to be on a single drive with SCSI ID 0. I was going to try it again but was hoping someone could give me a yeah or nay on my theory. Thanks.

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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

3i installable right? I have it running on a 2850 and 2950 just fine. But I have an odd issue on the 2850, which has on-board PERC 4Di/e and PERC 4 DC (PCI), in that 3i does not seem to see a PERC4 DC card on the 2850, odd, since the 2950 has a PERC4 DC card (beyond the PERC 5/i), and sees it fine. Other than the PERC 4 DC just not showing up on the 2850, the ESX 3i on 2850 and 2950 appears completely functional.

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RParker
Immortal
Immortal

Hardware RAID makes no difference. They are ALL invisible to the OS. It should recognize there is a hard drive to install it, and it doesn't matter if its RAID 1, 0, 10 or whatever.

It should install fine. Are you sure you don't have a Fibre or iSCSI SAN HBA that it was trying to boot from?

Gui
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Did you install the latest firmwares and bios version? VMware probably tested this with the latest versions

mattinator
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I tried again and failed at least from my perspective. I updated the BIOS, firmware as suggested then proceeded with the install. I tried a single SCSI Disk with SCSI ID 0 and the installation and successive reboots were successful. However, I cannot bring myself to run a production system off of one drive so I did the install again after creating a RAID 1. I ran into the exact same Kernel Panic error message. I had already updated the system firmware, bios, etc ... so I gave up and reverted back to esx 3.5. I appreciate your assistance ...

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Schorschi
Expert
Expert

This really is starting to feel like an issue I saw on 2850, during beta of 3i. I had a situation where until I explicity initialized the RAID set, ESX had trouble reading the geometry of the logical drive, this makes sense, in light of your results so far. I now always initialize RAID sets out of habit, on Dell. But had to learn it, since HP always initializes RAID sets when they are created new.

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mattinator
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I did try that too. I deleted the RAID 1, created a new one, and then initialized it but had the same problem. I appreciate your assistance though.

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Marco_Matos
Contributor
Contributor

hi,

when this server arrived for me, i got the same issue.

So, I run the dell cd that came w/ the server, updated the perc drivers for esx (on this instance, the wizard asked me to put esx3.5 cd on drive, as 3.5i was not available on this setup wizard),

as the setup read esx3.5 cd image, it allows perc drivers to be installed and asks to reboot the machine

on reboot, I changed the 3.5 to 3.5i cd on drive, it booted and installed on server, and perc drivers for esx3.5 worked fine on 3.5i version

regards,

Marco Matos

-

vmware@marcomatos.com

Marco Matos - vmware@marcomatos.com
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