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dborgill
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎03-20-2007 01:21 PM

Trying to boot ESX 3.0.1 from SAN - blinking cursor only

We have over 10 IBM xseries ESX hosts booting from SAN through two Qlogic HBAs. We upgraded a few hosts from 2.5.x fine but the last two we have upgraded, they will not boot from SAN, we only get a blinking cursor after POST.

We have zoned everything the same way other servers were zones, set the Qlogic to boot and have installed the ESX boot partition on the LUN that shows up in setup. After setup completes successfully, the server is rebooted but goes through POST and only gets the blinking cursor.

Any ideas?

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Paul_Lalonde
Commander
Commander
‎03-20-2007 06:20 PM

Dumb question, but is the FC HBA configured in your BIOS boot order?

Also, you're not getting any GRUB errors or messages (or are you?)... so this makes me think you may not have marked the boot partition as ACTIVE....

Paul

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dborgill
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎03-21-2007 08:47 AM

There is no option in the BIOS for HBA boot... I thought it just did it automatically. At least, that is how our other IBM servers our. Yes, the HBA in it's own BIOS is set to boot.

No GRUB errors, nothing. Just POST and then a blinking cursor.

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Paul_Lalonde
Commander
Commander
‎03-21-2007 08:50 AM

Can you boot from a DOS or Linux boot diskette / CD and verify that the SAN LUN partition is marked as "Active" or "Bootable" ?

If you're not getting any GRUB messages, it sounds like the BIOS isn't handing control over to the MBR of the primary partition (because it isn't marked as active)

Paul

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dborgill
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎03-21-2007 09:13 AM

Cool --- I have a Linux Rescue CD that has GParted on it.. that will work right?

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Paul_Lalonde
Commander
Commander
‎03-21-2007 09:31 AM

That will work.. as long as that Rescue CD contains a device driver for your HBA.

If not, just boot from DOS and let the HBA BIOS int13h emulation handle access to the LUN. fdisk will work.

Paul

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dborgill
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎03-21-2007 09:42 AM

So any DOS boot disk created from Windows should work also?

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Paul_Lalonde
Commander
Commander
‎03-21-2007 09:44 AM

Yup... if in doubt, go to: http://www.bootdisk.com

Paul

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affoliveira
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎03-27-2007 05:58 AM

Do you have BIOS enabled in the Qlogic???

If not enable it and your problem is solved.

When you install ESX the Fibre Link is brought up by the installer, and the installation will work but after a reboot if the Bios isn't enabled the link won't get up and the ESX won't boot!!!

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dborgill
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎06-08-2007 09:54 AM

This was do to incorrect zone mappings on our Mcdatas...

Thanks!

Also, good to have all vdisk mappings OFF except for boot LUN

Message was edited by:

dborgill

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