ESXi 3.5 Win XP Pro (32bit) SATA Controller Issue

[iXuPi]

I recently installed ESXi on a Dell Precision 670 (Thanks to the members on this forum for helping me with my nocheckCPUIDLimit issue). I now have an issue trying to install Win XP Pro 32bit. I mount it to the .ISO and everything seems to run fine, but Windows fails to see my SATA controller. I tried making a .flp file with the SATA drivers from Dell and mount that but it doesn't see the hard drive. Is there a trick to this or is my SATA controller not supported?

Thanks for your help.

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

Your post has been moved to the VI: Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum

Dave Mishchenko

VMware Communities User Moderator

The XP cd doesn't have the SCSI drivers on it to recognize either the Buslogic or LSI logic SCSC controllers that ESX uses in its VMs. If you created your VM with a SCSI adapter type of buslogic, you'll need to download a drivers floppy image from the below link.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/drivers_tools.html

Then

1) copy the FLP file to your ESX server (you can put it on the VMFS data store).

2) edit your VM and change the floppy to use an image file. Then browse to the FLP file. Make sure the connected at power option is enabled.

3) power on your VM. During the Windows install at the right time press F6 to add storage drivers and then load the driver from the floppy drive in the VM.

If you're using the LSI logic controller - see this link - http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/09/vmware-installing-windows-xp-on-esx.html

[bertdb]

Windows XP won't see a SATA controller because there is no SATA controller in the virtual hardware... It will see a SCSI controller.

The SATA controller that you're talking about is a physical controller, right ?

[iXuPi]

Yes the controller I'm talking about is the physical one on the machine. So from what I'm gathering here is that Win XP will see it as a SCSI controller because that is what ESX is telling it it is. If that is the case then I just make a .flp file from the link above and XP should see the hard drive then?

Thanks for both of you taking the time to help.

[wpatton]

ESXi abstracts the physical hardware and creates a layer between it and your virtual machine. The virtual machine can't see that physical hardware, it only sees the virtual hardware that ESXi presents to it. When you setup the virtual machine, you chose either Buslogic or LSI disk controller for the system. With Windows XP, neither of those drivers are included on the install disk and so you must download the linked .flp, mount it on the system and press F6 at the start of the Windows install to add SCSI or RAID drivers.

That will fix up your install. Good luck!

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[iXuPi]

Thanks a lot. I'll do this when I get home. Much appreciated!