vSphere Essentials 5 Crashed. Looking for way to boot via CD.Flash and possibly recover.

[SecBob]

I was called after a neglected vSphere server went down. Won't boot, but BIOS info shows all drives with no S.M.A.R.T. errors. Boot volume is RAID 5 and 2nd volume is RAID 1.

My only hope is to boot ESXi or a utility to a flash drive and hope that it's a matter that can be addressed by cleaning up to volume (perhaps it MAXed out). But as far as I can tell, ESXi doesn't allow such disk operations even if you can boot to a flash drive. Any ideas?

I've used utilities like Partition Manager for other OSs, but they don't accommodate VMware's  proprietary VMFS filesystem. Is there a tool that does?

I believe it is ESXi v 5.1 as it was last updated in 2013.

Yes, I do have access to the keys and (I think) VMware install files for this server.

Thanks,

Bob

[TheBobkin]

Hello Bob,

If the R5(?!) medium is potentially toast then you should be able to boot/install ESXi from:

USB:

http://www.virten.net/2014/12/howto-create-a-bootable-esxi-installer-usb-flash-drive/

or CD/DVD:

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.install.doc%2FGUID-A3F70933...

Link to the only major release of 5.1 in 2013 (U1) and thus assuming what you should use for install media:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=285&downloadGroup=VCL-VSP510-ESXI-51U1

"I believe it is ESXi v 5.1 as it was last updated in 2013."

Obligatory: They don't make them like they used to(for a reason!).

(Also) Bob

[SecBob]

I use the workstation and Fusion products every day. Haven't done a lot with ESXi / vSphere though. If the RAID 5 / boot volume is not Fully dead yet, will booting to the flash this way conflict with the licensed version installed there? I was hoping (wishing 😉 to boot somehow and be able copy at least some VMs to another drive. It might be that it can't boot because the drive is full.

If I boot to a flash drive as you suggested, I assume that I need to install the license key and leave it that way until a new drive set can be installed. I hope that gives me full access to the existing (good) datastores. FYI the vCenter server VM was on that datastore.

I've been warning this client for years that they needed a new server (capacity, hardware & software age, backup problems, etc.). So I think maybe they'll listen now. But I'll have to get this server back up long enough to replace it.

I'll try this tomorrow.

Thanks,

Bob

[TheBobkin]

Hello Bob,

"If the RAID 5 / boot volume is not Fully dead yet, will booting to the flash this way conflict with the licensed version installed there?"

It shouldn't - you basically are selecting this new device as install location and then temporarily(or not) changing the boot-order to boot from this new install.

"If I boot to a flash drive as you suggested, I assume that I need to install the license key and leave it that way until a new drive set can be installed."

You will need to license this or use evaluation licensing temporarily (60 days).

"I hope that gives me full access to the existing (good) datastores."

Provided the datastores are intact you should be able to simply mount these to access them.

"So I think maybe they'll listen now."

This configuration does indeed sound troubled - for a start, having a discreet boot device (preferably RAID1 over two devices) would be a good start. And if anyone is going to even consider running on old 5.1, then at the very least they should update to the latest build of this.

Bob

[SecBob]

Bob,

Sorry I didn't reply earlier.

I went back to run the bootflash only to find I could now, not even boot to a BIOS screen. It turned out to be a motherboard issue. Had to do a bit of a drive to get one  in a hurry, but all is up and running now.

To make sure I had a backup of everything I tried 2 methods. Both worked, but I cannot see why it was so slow. I get that backup over a 1Gb network only gets me a 3rd of that. So I connected a USB drive to a running VM and backed up all the VMs that way. Still slow. A LAN that never hits the hardware- NIC should not have it's limitations. Oh well, I got it anyway. Some I used Export for, and others were straight copies. Both were very, very slow. So it took days to get it all.

Thanks for your help.

Bob