ESX doesn't boot anymore - GRUB

[-stijn-]

After upgrading 2 ESX servers from ESX3.0 to 3.5 they don't boot anymore.... they stop at boot with the "message" GRUB ... They probably don't find they boot partition anymore...

Thanks,

-Stijn-

[admin]

Are you using SAN storage, and did you remember to disconnect the HBA cables or mask away the LUNs as per the installation documentation? If not, depending how the LUNs were presented, GRUB may be pointing to a SAN LUN as the boot partition.

[-stijn-]

I guess that that's the problem.... we didn't masked away the LUNS to the ESX servers and I think that for some reason during the upgrade, the boot location was changed to a vmfs LUN....

[kjb007]

Hopefully you didn't mess up your vmfs. I would rerun the upgrade, and validate when you see your disk partitioning scheme, that you are using the correct LUN. To be safe, mask out the LUNs this time, and/or pull the SAN connection if you're not booting off a SAN LUN.

-KjB

[-stijn-]

I already did that for now (masking out the LUNs). However, we are using blades in an enclosure and we can't just pull out the fibre (internal blade switches), so we have to update the SAN zoning every time...

Why isn't that build in that you shouldn't change anything on a vmfs volume.... ? In worst case something like an MBR is put on it?

I already tried to upgrade again, and the disk for the MBR is correct... but if I boot with a special CD, I notice that the /boot/grub/grub.conf isn't correct...

Is there any possibility to boot from a Linux CD in single user mode and change those settings manually? If so, which CD or linux flavour can I use?

Thanks,

-Stijn-

[wila]

Hi Stijn,

I've just published one of my internal notes on this subject, have a look here

good luck!

--

Wil

Message was edited by: wila, fixed my wiki syntax typo

[passahobe]

Hi

Perhaps thats a stupid suggestion, but maybe that you had selected a wrong LUN on GRUB configuration during the setup/upgrade. Remember that ESX install detects all LUNs availables, and it is possible that during installation the wizard suggest oyu other than the first local hdd partition (cciss/c0d0 on H Proliant, for example).

You can repeat the update process taking care of this hint. I hope this help you.