Installation fails at "loading 34.storage-drivers"

[Animatele]

Hello All!

We have a problem while installing vSphere 4 on our intel server. Installation fails when "loading 34.storage-drivers" status message appears, at 26% of loading system drivers. System stops responding, and no difference between graphical mode install or text mode install.

Equipment we are using is in ESX 4 HCL - it's as follows:

Intel Server type 1550SR, MB S1550PALR, two Xeon 5450 CPUs, 16Gb FB-DIMM DDRII, SAS controller Adaptec RAID 5805, 5 x Seagate Savvio ST973451SS SAS HDD(RAID 5)

Esxi 4.0 installs on this server without any issues, and we have another identical server, which runs ESXI for a 2 weeks, and without a problems.

Any ideas how to install vsphere on this hardware?

[admin]

I'd suggest checking the hardware compatibility list. Also, you could try to get a serial log.

[bigbjfan]

It was at the same 26% point that all my upgrades appeared to stop and not be progressing but I just gave it more time and it eventually completed successfully. Same pattern for 4 servers upgraded.

[Animatele]

But it seems that it hangs completely - mouse doesn't respond and CtrlAltDel doesn't have any effect. I'll wait for a while, maybe you are right...

And as for HCL - as I said, all hardware in this server are included there.

I was waiting for a 40 minutes - no response. It's just stops responding, and I don't know what to try else.

Message was edited by: Animatele

[admin]

I couldn't find that motherboard with google. What kinds of NICs are present?

[Animatele]

Oh, I'm sorry, it was a typo - Motherboard is actually Intel S5000PAL with 2 x Intel® PRO/1000 EB ethernet controlers...

Here is the link to HCL regarding this system -

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?action=search&deviceCategory=server&product...CoreIntelXeon5400&chipset%5B%5D=-1&stepping=&nsockets=&ncores=&max_mem=&rorre=0

And this is the link to HCL for my RAID controller - Adaptec RAID 5805 -

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?action=search&deviceCategory=io&productId=1...

All hardware has an updated firmwares, and the server I currently configuring, was running without any issues for a several month, been highly loaded (but not with ESX. but with Win 2k3 server installed)

[admin]

Hm. I can't diagnose from this information. I think you'll have to get a serial log or file a support ticket.

[Animatele]

How can I get this serial log?

And I'm unable to file a support ticket because we haven't purchased vsphere yet, we just testing for now.

[admin]

getting a serial log is covered here (though, this is for an installed ESX system, not for the version of ESX that runs off the CD, so you'll need to adjust accordingly)

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100390...

If you're just testing, you may want to install it into a VM under Workstation rather than onto a physical server. That's often faster.