ESXi install on a HP N40L Microserver - Errors during installation ?

[gcm00]

Hi,

I have a HP N40L Microserver which I have booted the ESXi 5.1 media via a usb key and when I get through the first two steps (Enter Key + F11 Key) it shows an error message in red text any help on this will be most appreciated.

Logs are stored on non-persistent storage. Consult product documentation to configure a syslog server or a scratch partition.

I have used gparted to delete all the disk partitions on the 4 internal disks not sure if this is the issue but just can't get to the next stage to install the O/S (ESXi) onto some media so I can use this host as my ESXi test bed.

I have tried using both a DVD and a USB key to boot the media still have the same issue. It just seems to die at the point of accessing the HDD disks, but I can confirm that gparted can see the disks and make changes to the disk partitions.

Any help will be most appreciated.

I have attached a screen capture from the boot process for reference.

many thanks

GCM

[kermic]

Welcome to communities!

Your host complains that it doesn't have a location where logfiles could be stored. Since you've booted your server from USB, this is a normal and expected behaviour. You can either add a disk resource (local or SAN) or configure the host to forward log messages to syslog server to resolve this.

This should help: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1033696

WBR

Imants

[SatyS]

From VMware documentation

"Installing ESXi 5.1 requires a boot device that is a minimum of 1GB in size. When booting from a local disk or SAN/iSCSI LUN, a 5.2GB disk is required to allow for the creation of the VMFS volume and a 4GB scratch partition on the boot device. If a smaller disk or LUN is used, the installer will attempt to allocate a scratch region on a separate local disk. If a local disk cannot be found the scratch partition, /scratch, will be located on the ESXi host ramdisk, linked to /tmp/scratch. You can reconfigure /scratch to use a separate disk or LUN. For best performance and memory optimization, VMware recommends that you do not leave /scratch on the ESXi host ramdisk."

You can create a persistent area for the scratch partition http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=103369...

Regards,

SatyS

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[gcm00]

Kermic/SatyS,

Thank you for your response, I did create a fat16 (4gb) partition on the first internal disk in the system but still has the same error, I did have a look at the KB article that you sent to me but I cannot workout how to perform these actions with the ESXi product not installed onto the system as the error occurs before I even get the software installed on the host ? Using either the DVD or USB Key method 😞

Any help will be most appreciated.

Thanks

GCM

[kermic]

From the screenshot it looks like your host actually is installed and throws the message after the post-install reboot.

You should be able to press F2, configure the management network and proceed with the KB steps.

What looks a bit suspicious in the screenshot is the fact that it doesn't show the default management IP (should be DHCP).

Do you have a supported NIC in your server?

Also, since you're considering using local disks for scratch partition, why not installing the ESXi on local HDDs? Then the scratch partition is created automatically during install.

[gcm00]

Actually this error occurs when I try to install the software during the first boot from either usb media or dvd media, I have created a fat16 - 4GB partition on the first internal disk but this did not seem to fix the issue, I am planning to install the software on the local HDD's but the error stops me moving forward during the installation process, I only get to the first two steps (Enter Key, F11 Key) then the error occurs after that I cannot move forward 😞

Any help will be most appreciated.

Thanks

[Josh26]

This error often shows up during installation if you look hard enough - it's not the reaoson your install is failing. You definitely shouldn't need to make partitions yourself.

The N40L is not on the HCL, and unless you upgraded the RAID card yourself, it won't have any supported storage either. Unfortunately this looks like more of a hardware support issue.