Problem booting ESX 3.5

[javrob]

I did a new installation in a Dell PE 2800. When the system is booting, it stayed in "mount local filesystem. What could be?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

If you see an error about "Mounting root failed: Dropping into basic maintenance shell" and you have a MegaRAID controller then you might want to look at this KB article - http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003448. I beleive this patch is included in ESX 3.5 Update 1 if you haven't tried that whch wolud be recommended.