VMware 5.5.0 Boot startup loops on F2 & F11 line displaying

[R0SE]

I have just tried to upgrade / migrate one of my VMware hosts from version 4.1 to 5.5.0. When I reboot the system after the upgrade completes it gets as far as displaying part of the normal final screen which should show the Server name, IP address etc and the line at the bottom which has "F2 ......      F11 ....". What happens is that it continually flashes only the "F2 ....  F11 ....." line. If I power off the server and restart it starts up VMware 4.1 successfully. I haven't lost any data.  Considering that the upgrade / migration says that it can not rollback; I'm impressed that somehow mine did.

Any ideas how I can get it to upgrade correctly and boot?

During the upgrade the only error message I get is a "Custom VIBs Warning" during prechecks.

<3RD_PARTY_SOFTWARE WARNING: Host contains third-party VIB(s) that have no substitutes on the ISO.

['vmware-esx-drivers-net-igb', 'vmware-esx-epsec-vfile']>

I continued with the migration ignoring these.

The 'vmware-esx-epsec-vfile'  VIB I believe is from vShield Endpoint which might be causing the problem. The server original was using Trend Micro Deep Security which I removed and Restore the server. I didn't remove vShield.

Do you know how I can remove this VIB? Will removing it cause a problem?

The 'vmware-esx-drivers-net-igb'  VIB I believe will just require downloading the correct ones and installing them for version 5.5.

What action should I take to get 5.5.0 up and working?

Regards

Ron

[R0SE]

I forgot to mention...

I have a new host with VMware 5.5 vSphere installed with vCentre 5.0.

What I am trying to do is move old Hosts running in a VMware 4.1 cluster to the new host.

That is...

1. Uninstall Trend Deep Security from the 4.1 host serverx.
2. Delete host serverx from 4.1 vCentre
3. Upgrade host serverx to 5.5
4. Add host serverx to the new host running 5.5 vSphere and 5.1 vCentre.

I hope this helps.

[R0SE]

Flashing line is....

<F2> Customize System / View logs                                                                     <F12> Shutdown / Restart

not F11.                     

[R0SE · Accepted solution]

I decided to do a new install and re-add the servers.