Storage device not found on ESX4 with AIC-9410

[eherot]

I am trying to install ESX 4.0 update 1 on a Supermicro X7DBR-3 system with an embedded AIC-9410 HBA (this HBA is listed on the HCG with Vendor ID 9005 and Device ID 041f) . All SATA controllers are disabled in the BIOS and the logical drive shows up in the Adaptec device summary during POST, however there is nothing listed on the Storage Device screen. The HBA itself is listed if I run esxcfg-info but not if I run esxcfg-scsidevs -a (under ESXi for that last command)

Any ideas where I can look next or what might be wrong?

[AnatolyVilchins]

I don't see the SuperMicro board listed on the HCG for 4U1 - do you

have any other experience that this MB actually works with ESX?

from http://serverfault.com/questions/101893/storage-device-not-found-on-esx4-with-aic-9410

Starwind Software Developer

www.starwindsoftware.com

[eherot]

I didn't even realize the separate motherboard list existed until a VMware support rep pointed me toward it yesterday evening. Apparently I have the one model of Supermicro motherboard not on that list (and I have five of them!).

At VMware's suggestion, I was able to get ESXi 4.0u1 running (including vMotion with fully supported Dell PE1950) on the machine using a $10 USB thumb drive as the storage device. This should work fine for me since our setup relies mainly on an iSCSI SAN for storage and other than the HBA issues, ESXi seems to work fine on this system.

Thanks for your help!