Newbi request: Supported device warning

[nigelp]

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere but i have been unable to locate any reference to this specific motherboard.

. I am getting the dreaded "Unable to find a supported device to write the VMWare ESX Server 2i 3.5.0 to" warning.

The referral information says;

Gigabyte

G31M - 2SL2

Sourced tag: Aborted

Bios Rev F6

For the purposes of evaluation the set up is a P4 3GHz plus 4Gb RAM with a single 250GB SATA, which is empty.

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

[R-Sommer]

This means your SATA Controller isn't recognized by ESXi.

You can try 2 work arounds:

1. Use ESXi 3.5 U2

2. Install ESXi 3.5 U3 on a USB-Stick (sample HowTo)

[nigelp]

Many thanks for the speedy reply!

Unfortunately the links to U2 on the site automatically route to U3, which is the version I am having trouble with.

[nigelp]

I tried the second option of installing U3 on to a USB stck, but now get the following warnings on boot-up

"cannot get bank 1 parameters

http:// ...ditto bank 2

Panic No usable bank found "

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks for reading this!

[R-Sommer]

Please check this Thread if that will solve your problem.

[Gollie]

Hi

Run into the same errors, followed the leads but the problem is I'm using a USB Kingston Flash disk.

Worked perfectly with the SATA drive in my Laptop but not on the P4 PC (ASUS)

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. If you want to boot from a USB flash drive then you need to do something like this - http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/Boot%203i%20from%20USB%20flash%20drive.html.

[Gollie]

Hi

Did all of this, it did work perfectly on my laptop, but on the Pc it gives a problem when the sata drives are connected:

Cannot get bank 1 parameters Warning: Bank 1 parameters invalid

Panic: noUsable bank found

When the disks are disconnected:

Panic ; cannot get bank parameters

Why does the ESXI on the usb require harddisks?

Is this not the whole idea to be able to boot up without hard disks and then to be able to setup hypervisor to store vm's on NAs /SAN devices?

Regards