Problems installing ESXi 4.1

[Buechen]

Hallo,

when trying to install ESXi FSC RX200 S3 (Intel Xeon 51xx Series), which appears at VMware's HCG) after it is successfully loaded form CD it seems the screen freezes. When showing the options (Cancel, Repair, Install) it seems the keyboard doesn't work. The only way to exit then is to reset. During the VMKernel loading everything looks fine, then shortly before the screen of choose appears there is a red message (red font on black ground), but it appears too short to read. Any idea?

Thank you

[Buechen]

Has anybody an idea how to install ESXi in console mode to see eventual error messages?

[a_p_]

Some thoughts:

Make sure you have the latest firmware/BIOS installed.

Enable Intel VT-x and NX in the BIOS. (if you change anything, make sure to power cycle the server, reboot is not sufficient!)

Detach any unneeded cables (e.g. FC, ...) from the server.

Try installing ESXi on an USB stick (maybe there's an issue with the LSI controller)

André

[Buechen]

Thanks,

VT and NX are enabled, BIOS has the newest flash, every unneeded cable is detached, and ESXi was even booted from USB Stick. Power cycled. No improvement.

The problem is, I am not even able to start the process of installation, because in the selection menu the screen is already freezed. The kernel is loading and at the end there is an error message (containing warning) but is not readable, because it appears for milli seconds. Maybe to improve it would be helpful to make the error readable, e. g. by freezing the screen or pausing the kernel loading process.

ESXi 3.5 was running successfully on that server, but a little halting sometimes. So I decided not to update to 4.1, but to do a fresh installation of 4.1. VMs were backuped, of course.

[a_p_]

Before digging deeper, can you confirm that the downloaded ISO file has the correct md5 checksum and did you try to burn another CD just in case of an error on the CDROM?

Could you try an installation with ESXi 4.0 U2 to see if this works. (even though the server is listed as in the HCL for 4.1).

André

[Buechen]

Now I've loaded ESXi 4.0 down, did an image on USB and... it works!

Honestly, I never did an md5 checksum test, because I don't know how to do it. Could you explain?

By the way, the kernel loading process (when the screen shows so many dots, by loading the tgz-files) took sooooooooo long, though the server has 12 GB of RAM and 2 processors. Did I forget to activate something in the BIOS. When this process is finished the rest works qiuckly. That means, while loading everthing into the memory seems to took very long, 15 to 20 mintues I'd say. Is that normal?

[a_p_]

Honestly, I never did an md5 checksum test, because I don't know how to do it. Could you explain?

I'm an old DOS fan, therefore I usually use the old command line utility http://freepdfxp.de/md5.exe to check md5 checksums. It is easy to use, just run md5.exe with the file you want to test as an argument.

e.g. md5.exe VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.1.0-260247.x86_64.iso sould give you 35201279338C6EFBBB071FFCC673F822 VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.1.0-260247.x86_64.iso as the result.

By the way, the kernel loading process (when the screen shows so many dots, by loading the tgz-files) took sooooooooo long, though the server has 12 GB of RAM and 2 processors. Did I forget to activate something in the BIOS. When this process is finished the rest works qiuckly. That means, while loading everthing into the memory seems to took very long, 15 to 20 mintues I'd say. Is that normal?

I saw different installations on different systems taking that long. It seems to depend on the hardware components.

Since the installation worked with 4.0, it looks like an installation issue in 4.1 (or a bad media). If it is not the media and you have the time, you could try to update the installed host to 4.1.

André

EDIT: md5 link - http://www.fourmilab.ch/md5/

[a_p_]

... just saw, VMware recommends the same tools on http://www.vmware.com/download/md5.html

André

[Buechen]

Thanks so far, now I read this thread and this one and it makes me believe there is something wrong with ESXi 4.1, so I would like to change the topic of this thread. The solutions there: 1. Try to install ESXi on a another machine to hard disk or USB stick and attach it to the machine you want to run it on (if I'd have another machine on which it'd running, it'd be a nice idea). 2. Install ESX 4.0 and make an update to 4.1. I'll try this one but which ESXi 4 shall I use to update from? 4.0, 4.0 U1 or 4.0 U2?

By the way, thanks for the md5 info, I've checked this and the media is okay, the md5sum's from downloaded media and the one shown at download site are identical.

[a_p_]

I'll try this one but which ESXi 4 shall I use to update from? 4.0, 4.0 U1 or 4.0 U2?

It doesn't really matter which version to install first. It just has to be one which works (some systems require at least U1 because of driver issues)

André

[Buechen]

So now I successfully installed ESXi 4.0 U2 and updated successfully to ESXi 4.1 via vCLI 4.1. But when loading ESXi 4.0 U2 for installation, again shortly before the selection menu (Cancel, Repair, Install) there a red warning message, but too short to read, but this time the screen seemed not to be freezed.

And after updating to ESXi 4.1 and rebooting subsequently the console wasn't accessible again. Keyboard and mouse were attached via KVM on PS2 port. So I directly attached an USB keyboard and the root console was accessible again.

So the conclusion: Whatever the error message has shown, the main problem with ESXi 4.1 in my case was probably the PS2 attached keyboard. Now I am excited about the performance running VM's.

[aryasridhar]

I am facing the same issue, However, I have used both PS2 and USB Keyboards, and that does not help.

I am installing it on a Desktop

AMD X4 945 CPU

Gigabyte MA785GMT-US2H - Motherboard

4 GB DDR 3 1333 Mhz FSB

VMware Workstation 6.5

Please Help !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!