Adaptec 29160lp and XP Guest

[rabbie]

Hello All,

I have a problem with ESXi and installed on a standard desktop PC (P4 dual core with 2gb of ram, Intel network card) and an Adaptec 29160LP SCSI RAID controller (not configured for raid. just with standalone HDD's connected).

ESXi works fine on this setup and I Have so far tested Ubuntu 8.04 LTS with no problems. I was able to install it and configure the network and all.

The only problem I am having is that I am unable to install Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server as the guest OS is unable to "detect any hard drives".

I know that with VMWare Server, I was able to select IDE as the hard drive type for WIndows guest operating systems but with ESXi, I cant seem to find that option anywhere.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do to get the Windows Guests OS's to install ?

Thanks in advance.

Rabbie.

[rabbie]

Hello again,

I just installed a SATA HDD in this ESXi machine and it is being detected and I can turn it into a datastore but Windows still does not pick up any drives when installing...

Can anyone suggest anything?

Thanks.

[rabbie]

Here is an image of the windows error that I am getting when I try to install windows in ESXi.

[rabbie]

Does anyone have any suggestions at all? Has anyone else got Winxp working in ESXi at all ?

[weinstein5]

The problem is XP does not come with the appropriate SCSI drivers you need to download them - check out this thread - http://communities.vmware.com/message/657630#657630

Do not forget if you found this or any other answer helpful please award points by marking an answer either helpful or correct -

[rabbie]

Thanks for the tip, Ill give it a go tonight and let you know how I go .

[rabbie]

Hey weinstein5,

Thanks for your help. That advice was great. I had to download the LSI drivers and create a floppy image (.flp) and I used that to install XP and it worked. Incase anyone else wants a copy of the image, here it is:

I had to rename the file to a .jpg to make it attach to this post, so please rename it to .flp if you download it.