Getting ESX 3.0.2 to see the CD-ROM on my Bladeserver

[jplindemann]

Hey all, I have an IBM BladeServer (8852) with several HS21 blades. I dropped them into a resource pool and now I'm trying to create a VM, but I can't install Windows on it because it doesn't see the CD-ROM drive. I feel like I'm missing something but I have no idea what. Here's what I've tried:

- In VirtualCenter, went into "Edit Settings" for the VM on the Hardware tab and changed CD/DVD Drive 1 to Device Type "Host Device" (Connected/Connect at power on). I then pointed it at /dev/cdrom, which should be right since there's only one CD-ROM drive in the BladeCenter.

- Set it to "Client Device", and then tried to connect the CD-ROM at bootup. This had no effect, whether I chose 😧 or E:.

I've had this work on standalone ESX Servers without issue (I changed it to "Host Device" and switched it to /dev/cdrom), but the Bladeserver is a totally different beast. I'm sure there's some layer of abstraction involved here that I'm not accounting for. Do I have to mount the Bladeserver's CD-ROM at the ESX Server command line or something?

[TomHowarth]

not wanting to sound too obvious, but have you made sure that the CD-ROM is presented to the physical blade my pressing the CD button, also have you verified the CD by booting a CD against the Machine in question?

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[jplindemann]

Yup, that's one of the first things I checked. When I look at the VM's summary page, it says that its host is Blade1. I went into the lab and made sure that Blade1 has both the CD and Monitor lights lit. I've also gone into the Advanced Management Module and set the media tray to Blade1.

As for the CD, I used it to install on a standalone ESX Server last week, so it's working and bootable. The VM isn't even getting to the point where the CD could fail, however. It doesn't even recognize that the CD-ROM drive is there.

[jasonboche]

I know this won't help your root cause much but it's a best practice to use .ISOs saved in your VMFS data store as opposed to putting CD-ROMs in the ESX tray. .ISOs are much faster to use when installing VM operating systems. The only time I put a CD-ROM or DVD in the ESX tray is when I'm going to use the ESX server to create an .ISO using dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/vmfs/volumes/volume1/windows.iso

[i]Jason Boche[/i]

[VMware Communities User Moderator|http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-2444][/i]

[TomHowarth]

but you have verified the physical CD-ROM device in the Chassis, migrate the VM's guesting on one host and reboot it with the verfied CD-Rom attached to see if it starts to boot from the CD.

I have got admit I have found the IBM chassis to be very stable from a hardware perspective

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[jplindemann]

I'll give that a shot, but I have no reason to believe that the CD-ROM drive is dead. I installed ESX Server on all of my blades using it, so unless it just up and choked it's something else.

I'm using a DS4200 SANS Array as a datastore...can I just copy any ISO to one of its LUNs and run it from there, or do I have to create a particular directory structure or something?

[jplindemann]

Just had the revelation that you can pscp ISO images to the DS4200 through the individual blades, since mapped LUNs show up in the /vmfs/volumes directory of each blade.

Thanks all.