SLES9 guest on ESX3 - No keyboard / No mouse, VM Wont shutdown

[arboundy]

Been using ESX3 successfully for Windows guests for a couple of months. Have successfully created an Ubuntu7 server, so thought Id port a legacy SLES9 box buy creating a new guest in ESX.

Didnt think about it too much, went through the standard new VM wizard, selected Enterprise 9, 20Gb HD.

Issue 1: When I fire the guest up, I go through the linux startup screens and am offered the warning about 32bit on 64bit host.... and I have no keyboard or mouse to hit ok, neither can I F2 to get to text mode.

Anyone been through anything similar / workaround?

Issue 2: When I try and Power Off or Reset the VM, it hangs at "Powering off Virtual Machine" at 95% for about 15 to 20 minutes before it stops.

Anyone been through anything similar / workaround?

Cheers,

Aaron

[arboundy]

rebuilt ISO from source all ok

[devzero]

try hitting control-key twice when you cannot type into the window.

furthermore, add "clock=pit" to the kernel-commandline.

report if this helps

[harryc]

I had this with SLES10 64 bit ( on ESX 3.0.1), never returned from the hang.

Quick fix is

root:vmhost04# vm-support -x ( note the number of the offending VM )

root:vmhost04# vm-support -X 1084 ( use the number from above ).

Works every time, I have gone back to SLES10 32bit, so far no hangs .