ESXi Update 3 (ESXe350-200810401-O-UG- UPDATE) Fails (Freezes)

[jandie]

Good afternoon,

I've been trying to update my ESXi Embedded on my Dell PE R905 and have not been successful. I've tried using the VIU, CLI and remoteinstall.exe - all methods failed at the same step/progress. From the VIU and RemoteInstall.exe, it is stuck at 70% trying to install firmware update for u3 release. From the VIC it is stuck at 25% under the task "install". There are no VMs inside this host and I've been putting it on Maintenance Mode before every try. The only way to get it back to normal is to do a power down and power up.

I am probably missing something simple here, but I thought maybe you guys can throw in some ideas.

Thank you in advance,

Have a great day.

[jandie]

Sorry to bump, just wanted to see if there are any thoughts to my issue.

Thanks in advance.

Message was edited by: jandie

ADDED SCREEN SHOT

[jandie]

Update: I was able to update to the newest firmware (using VIU) by detaching the virtual devices from the server (DRAC). Additional info: - Appendix D. This still doesn't explain why my other patching to a different server model (but same brand - Dell PE 2950) worked without detaching the virtual drives.

However, now the update freezes during the "vi client update" at 62%.

Thanks,

[jandie]

Quick update:

After a long troubleshooting period and trying different things, I am finally able to move on from this problem. Here's the solution. I had to replace the SD cards in all my R905s to USB drives. This is a quote from the hardware vendor:

"There is only one way to update

that SD Card and that would be to pull it from the system and put it in another

system and update it. What we need to do is replace the SD Card with a

USB drive. There is not a performance hit with the replacement as the

write speed is where the SD card excels over the USB drive and all the work is

in the read speed where they are the same.

...

What needs to be done on your

part :

Write down all license

information from the ESXi systems and place in a safe place as we will need

them after the replacement.

Download the OS installation

Disk : www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=Dell_ESXi_RecoveryCD

Here is a link to the ESXi Guide

: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/eslvmwre/EN/VES_3i/Solutions%20Guide/PDF/MSGPA03.pdf"

I've replaced 3 out of 5 SD cards and they all have been working just fine (plus I was able to patch/flash them).

Kudos to Dell for getting this fixed (sending over replacement USB keys, etc.) for me, but I am a bit weary about the issue to begin with - these servers were new out of the box.

Anyways, I hope this will be of help to somebody else who might have the same problem.

Thanks!

jandie

www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=Dell_ESXi_RecoveryCD