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beastman
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Virtual Machine Oddity When Adding SCSI Tape Drive

We have a WIN2K3 server on ESX3.5 Update1 and the NIC is set for a static address. I power down the machine, and add the SCSI Tape Drive to the Virtual Machine. Once the server is back up, NIC1 is gone (Still in registry) and we now have a NIC2 but with a DHCP address. I'm not sure how this is happening but i can produce it over and over.

Dream On Alice, This Ain't Wonderland
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Texiwill
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Hello,

When you attached the SCSI Tape did you assign it to a new controller? I.e. a 2nd SCSI Controller? Try this and see if the problem duplicates. If so then I suggest opening an SR with your VMware Support Representative.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
beastman
Contributor
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It is assigned to an additional adaptec 29320 controller in the server. There is the internal E200i that we don't use an the P400 that we are using with the SATA drives. The LTO3 drive is being attached to the Adaptec controller. So we are attaching to an additional SCSI Controller on the server.

Dream On Alice, This Ain't Wonderland
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Texiwill
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Hello,

Actually I meant within the VM. You can assign the Tape device a scsi ID controller:LUN. The controller should not be the one for the boot volume and the LUN should be the LUN ID of the tape device.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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beastman
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How I am doing is it to look at the "SCSI Controller" in the Storage Adapters section of the Configuration tab of the ESX server. If it states: vmhba2:6:0 then that is what we assign the tape drive. I'm not sure if this is the "Correct" way to do this but this is how we have been doing it.

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beastman
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See Screen Shot

Dream On Alice, This Ain't Wonderland
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Texiwill
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Hello,

Under the VM to which you assigned the tape drive do 'edit settings' and modify the settings within there. You should have no need to change anything at the vmhba level.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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beastman
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I think maybe we are misunderstanding each other. This VM never had a tape drive attached to it. I edit the settings under the VM and assign it a scsi device. Then assign it the Virtual device Node, that matches what the "Configuration Tab" indicates on the ESX server for that adapter. Pretty much just like you are saying, but upon restart, the NIC1 disappears and NIC2 comes up on the Windows 2003 server with a DHCP address instead of the static address that it was assigned. In the registry we can see that NIC1 is still there and that it assigned the static address, but it does not display in the porperties of the network.

Dream On Alice, This Ain't Wonderland
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Texiwill
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Hello,

We are missing each other. I want to know how you have it setup in the VM and you are mentioning items about the ESX server. Unless you are trying to say when you add in the Tape device to the physical server and boot ESX then boot the VM there are issues.

Are you assigning the tape device to the VM? Is so how are you doing this.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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beastman
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Ok, here are the steps. We deploy the Windows server from a template. We power on the server to configure the server itself, and assign a Static IP address to it. I shut down the windows server to add the tape drive which is already attached to the ESX 3.5 server. I assign it the the virtual device node of "SCSI (2:6) which i got from the Configuration Tab of the ESX 3.5 servers "Storage Adapters" for the Adapted card which the tape drive is attached to. Only a tape drive is attached to this card and nothing else. See Screen Shots. The picture on the top is of the ESX server in Virtual Center. The SCSI drirve is highlighted and displays the information that I am using for the actual tape drive when I assign it to the windows server.

Dream On Alice, This Ain't Wonderland
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beastman
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Dream On Alice, This Ain't Wonderland
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Texiwill
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Hello,

Yes that is the way to do it. Also the screen shot shows a second SCSI controller for the tape device.... So all things are satisfied from that perspective. It should not disable the first NIC. That is very odd indeed. However by adding the other controller you do change the PCI layout of the VM which may have something to do with this...


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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beastman
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The first controller SCSI Controller LSI Logic is used for the SATA drives and SCSI Controller 1 is for the tape drive

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