help with esxi please

[subwars]

Hi, I've spent all day trying to setup esxi and just can't go any further.

 

Wasted a few hours just trying to get it to install because of a no network seen, had to customize the installer with a driver.

 

Anyway since then I've been trying to create a datastore. Tried a couple drives i want it to be an intel 330 ssd though.

Tried both 5.0 and 5.1

Taken the drive out and deleted all partition, which didn't help.

Installed esxi onto the ssd, which worked, but then couldn't choose it as a datastore, deleted all partitions off it again, even did a disk erase on it to be 100% sure the gpt thing was gone.

 

I'm at a complete loss why in the world it wont let me create a datastore

 

I get the error

Call "HostDatastoreSystem.CreateVmfsDatastore" for object "ha-datastoresystem" on ESXi "192.168.1.100" failed.

Operation failed, diagnostics report:  Unable to create Filesystem, please see VMkernel log for more details: Failed to check for existing file system on device '/vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_____INTEL_SSDSC2CT120A3___________________00_CVMP214001LU120BGN__:1'.

 

If i look in the kernel log it shows

4972: no fs driver claimed device 'mpx.vmhba32:c0t0:l1' : not supported

4972: no fs driver claimed device 't10.ata______intel_ssdxxxxxxxx_________

4972: no fs driver claimed device ' control' : not supported

 

if anyone can help

 

[BetaQuasi]

What hardware are you doing this on?  Sounds like an incompatible motherboard issue to me.

[subwars]

asus p5q deluxe mobo, q9550, 8g, an old pci vid, a haupagge tune card, m1015 in IT mode.

 

have a gigabyte p35-ds3p, which was the mobo for unraid upto yesterday, when i started this upgrade. upgraded the p5q/q9550 main rig to an i7 and it has been rolled down to unraid, but wanted it to do more then just unraid now it has a good cpu, hence the esxi project.

[BetaQuasi]

I'm not 100% sure, but from the error messages you are getting I'd suggest your motherboard's SATA controller is not properly compatible with ESXi.  It can be a finicky jerk sometimes, and isn't really designed to run on consumer hardware.

[subwars]

i'd already tried with the 2 onboard controlls plus the pci card that was in the old build.

just disconected everything leaving the ssd connected to the m1015, and still errors

guess all i can do now is try on the gigabyte board.. sigh

[subwars]

well, tried 2 gigabyte boards now as well. the one from the htpc, which also wouldn't see the nic. so setup the original board from unraid it would see the nic, but i couldn't access/ping the box. reinstalled original unmoded esxi, onto it, sees the nic. assigned a static ip.. but still can't talk to the box..

 

maybe i should just try win7 pro with vmware or vmware in unraid again? just want to get the box to do more then host files now. rather then having a few machines on all day doing different things. get this to do it all.

[prostuff1]

Your best bet is to find a board that supports ESXi like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-C2SBC-Q-Desktop-Board-Hyper-Threading/dp/B0019CCGJQ

 

It is the one I use in my ESXi build and it has been working fine.

[brian89gp]

4972: no fs driver claimed device 'mpx.vmhba32:c0t0:l1' : not supported

4972: no fs driver claimed device 't10.ata______intel_ssdxxxxxxxx_________

4972: no fs driver claimed device ' control' : not supported

 

This is your answer, no driver for the controller the SSD is plugged into.  Just because ESXi can boot from it does not mean that it has a driver to support it as a datastore.  For ages ESX/ESXi has supported only SCSI/SAS controllers for datastores, only recently have they introduced support for some AHCI controllers (eg, SATA) and the supported ones tend to be the ones found on server motherboard chipsets (Intel)

 

If your motherboard allows it try flipping your SATA controllers into AHCI mode.

[WeeboTech]

Your best bet is to find a board that supports ESXi like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-C2SBC-Q-Desktop-Board-Hyper-Threading/dp/B0019CCGJQ

 

It is the one I use in my ESXi build and it has been working fine.

 

Are you able to pass thru any of the motherboard SATA ports?

I have the X7SBA and could not get the pass thru working even thought it has VT-D enabled.

[prostuff1]

Your best bet is to find a board that supports ESXi like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-C2SBC-Q-Desktop-Board-Hyper-Threading/dp/B0019CCGJQ

 

It is the one I use in my ESXi build and it has been working fine.

 

Are you able to pass thru any of the motherboard SATA ports?

I have the X7SBA and could not get the pass thru working even thought it has VT-D enabled.

Passthrough does work... though i am not sure about motherboard ports.  I have my SSD datastore and a BluRay drive hooked up to those right now.  I pass through 2 SASLP cards to unRAID and that works just fine.

[BobPhoenix]

asus p5q deluxe mobo, q9550, 8g, an old pci vid, a haupagge tune card, m1015 in IT mode.

 

have a gigabyte p35-ds3p, which was the mobo for unraid upto yesterday, when i started this upgrade. upgraded the p5q/q9550 main rig to an i7 and it has been rolled down to unraid, but wanted it to do more then just unraid now it has a good cpu, hence the esxi project.

I have a P5Q-EM with q9550s I could try in a few days.  It is my preclear station and when I left this morning it was at 31% of post read of cycle 1 of 3 started last night.  I only have 4G memory on it but I should be able to test ESXi with that when my preclear gets done.  Have HVR-1600 and M1015 I can throw at it as well.

[WeeboTech]

Your best bet is to find a board that supports ESXi like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-C2SBC-Q-Desktop-Board-Hyper-Threading/dp/B0019CCGJQ

 

It is the one I use in my ESXi build and it has been working fine.

 

Are you able to pass thru any of the motherboard SATA ports?

I have the X7SBA and could not get the pass thru working even thought it has VT-D enabled.

Passthrough does work... though i am not sure about motherboard ports.  I have my SSD datastore and a BluRay drive hooked up to those right now.  I pass through 2 SASLP cards to unRAID and that works just fine.

 

What CPU are you using?  Do you need to use a XEON CPU?

[BobPhoenix]

Your best bet is to find a board that supports ESXi like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-C2SBC-Q-Desktop-Board-Hyper-Threading/dp/B0019CCGJQ

 

It is the one I use in my ESXi build and it has been working fine.

 

Are you able to pass thru any of the motherboard SATA ports?

I have the X7SBA and could not get the pass thru working even thought it has VT-D enabled.

Passthrough does work... though i am not sure about motherboard ports.  I have my SSD datastore and a BluRay drive hooked up to those right now.  I pass through 2 SASLP cards to unRAID and that works just fine.

 

What CPU are you using?  Do you need to use a XEON CPU?

The Q9550S I had in my X7SBE was doing ESXi 5.0 with passthrough and mostly worked.  It worked fine for several weeks then a VM would crash and the only option was a reboot.  But otherwise didn't have a problem.  unRAID worked fine never crashed had M1015 to SAS expander.  Just the Windows VM recording off several tuner cards that crashed.  Never tried on my P5Q-EM however.

[prostuff1]

What CPU are you using?  Do you need to use a XEON CPU?

It is the Q9550, so not a xeon.

[subwars]

4972: no fs driver claimed device 'mpx.vmhba32:c0t0:l1' : not supported

4972: no fs driver claimed device 't10.ata______intel_ssdxxxxxxxx_________

4972: no fs driver claimed device ' control' : not supported

 

This is your answer, no driver for the controller the SSD is plugged into.  Just because ESXi can boot from it does not mean that it has a driver to support it as a datastore.  For ages ESX/ESXi has supported only SCSI/SAS controllers for datastores, only recently have they introduced support for some AHCI controllers (eg, SATA) and the supported ones tend to be the ones found on server motherboard chipsets (Intel)

 

If your motherboard allows it try flipping your SATA controllers into AHCI mode.

 

 

Hi, the board is already in AHCI mode, i tried one of the gigabytes in ide as well.. but not the asus board, only ahci. I did also try pluging the hdd into the m1015 card. Which also wouldn't work, it is flashed to IT mode, if that upsets esxi as well?

 

 

I have a P5Q-EM with q9550s I could try in a few days.  It is my preclear station and when I left this morning it was at 31% of post read of cycle 1 of 3 started last night.  I only have 4G memory on it but I should be able to test ESXi with that when my preclear gets done.  Have HVR-1600 and M1015 I can throw at it as well.

 

That would be awesome if you could, it should have the same controllers on it one would image being a p5q as well.

 

...

 

is it possible to download drivers and add them to esxi so it supports my boards sata ports?

[brian89gp]

Hi, the board is already in AHCI mode, i tried one of the gigabytes in ide as well.. but not the asus board, only ahci. I did also try pluging the hdd into the m1015 card. Which also wouldn't work, it is flashed to IT mode, if that upsets esxi as well?

 

The ASUS site says your board has the ICH10R and SIL5723 SATA controllers, I can almost guarentee the SIL5723 isn't supported and I am finding several posts saying the ICH10R is not supported under ESXi (the non-RAID ICH10 is though). Do you have any options to turn off any RAID features on the ICH10R?  How is the SSD set up in the controller?

 

As far as the M1015, does ESXi see the card under "Storage Adapters"?

[subwars]

Hi, the board is already in AHCI mode, i tried one of the gigabytes in ide as well.. but not the asus board, only ahci. I did also try pluging the hdd into the m1015 card. Which also wouldn't work, it is flashed to IT mode, if that upsets esxi as well?

 

The ASUS site says your board has the ICH10R and SIL5723 SATA controllers, I can almost guarentee the SIL5723 isn't supported and I am finding several posts saying the ICH10R is not supported under ESXi (the non-RAID ICH10 is though). Do you have any options to turn off any RAID features on the ICH10R?  How is the SSD set up in the controller?

 

As far as the M1015, does ESXi see the card under "Storage Adapters"?

 

hi, I'll double check when i get home. but i believe the only options regarding raid options. is to select between ide/ahci/raid. I've got ahci selected.. so essentialy the raid is disable.

 

I had a thought today, can the datastore be put onto a usb external drive. I've got a portable 250g drive that i haven't used it ages?

 

[BetaQuasi]

No, ESXi does not support USB-based datastores (at least, last time I looked on v5.0)

[BobPhoenix]

asus p5q deluxe mobo, q9550, 8g, an old pci vid, a haupagge tune card, m1015 in IT mode.

 

have a gigabyte p35-ds3p, which was the mobo for unraid upto yesterday, when i started this upgrade. upgraded the p5q/q9550 main rig to an i7 and it has been rolled down to unraid, but wanted it to do more then just unraid now it has a good cpu, hence the esxi project.

According to this post someone has your P5Q deluxe working with ESXi 4.1.  It looks like they had some custom drivers if I'm reading the specs correctly.  Specifically it says: "I've installed ESXi 4.1 on usb key thru VMWare Fusion . Mounted USB on my OpenSUSE in order to modify Hypervisor1 partition. Using base oem.tgz from this forum : viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1670 and modify as following :

 

- Update simple.map according to result of lspci -nn ( NIC using sky2.o drivers is not known as 11ab:4362 but 11ab:4364 )

- Add skge.o drivers to oem.tgz

- Add line for skge into simple.map ( 11ab:4320 0000:0000 network skge.o)"

So you might be able to get it to work with a little modification.  There are some ESXi drivers for your Marvel NIC here.  Then just use ESXi customizer to create a custom install ISO.  Still looking for other 5.0 drivers for other parts of your P5Q deluxe MB.

 

The one for my P5Q-EM is a little different it says that ESXi installs fine as long as another NIC is used instead of the Realteck.  The built in Realtek NIC causes an install error: "failed to load lvmdriver".  Although I might be able to use the custom OEM.TGZ linked above to get it to work with the Realteck NIC on mine.  I don't think my test is really going to help you but I should be able to test it out tomorrow.  Especially since I found a Realtek driver for ESXi for my test.  I think if you check the thread linked you might find some help getting it installed.  I don't think your M1015 should be a problem but the user did have a much earlier megaraid card listed in his post.  Anyway I will setup my custom ISO and see what happens for ESXi 5.0 tomorrow night.

[subwars]

still no luck.. just tried 4.1u3 with that custom oem and still erroring when creating datastore. plus it doesn't see any of the drives connected to the ibm, so yea not working it does see the nic's by default without me needing to run vmkload_mod sky2 which i had to with 5 and 5.1.. but oh well

[prostuff1]

With the hardware you are trying with i think you are going to cause yourself more frustration than you need to.

 

Grab that board I mentioned earlier and sell the others if you really want to do ESXi.

[subwars]

With the hardware you are trying with i think you are going to cause yourself more frustration than you need to.

 

too late 

Grab that board I mentioned earlier and sell the others if you really want to do ESXi.

yea if it had 1 more pci-e. i'd grab it.. but yea just not going to work.. need 2 sas cards, plus the tuner card sigh.. going to have to start testing the 2nd hand boards coming into work for compatibility

[prostuff1]

Get a SAS expander card to hook up to the IBM card.  Johnm uses one in his build i believe.  With one of those you could use only 1 pci-e slot and get 16 ports+ out of it.

[BobPhoenix]

Get a SAS expander card to hook up to the IBM card.  Johnm uses one in his build i believe.  With one of those you could use only 1 pci-e slot and get 16 ports+ out of it.

What he said.  I use two of them (Intel RES2SV240).  One on each of my ESXi servers.

[BobPhoenix]

Well I installed ESXi 5.0 on my P5Q-EM.  Apparently I need a different bios (I have the last version ASUS put out) because my P5Q-EM is not VT-d compatible.  The CPU came out of my X7SBE where I had ESXi 5.0 installed and passed through multiple PCI and PCIe cards to VMs.  So I know the CPU is VT-d compatible (Q9550S).  What I did see without passthrough is that I had NO problem with ESXi recognizing my 3TB Seagate drive as a datastore drive plugged into MB SATA ports.  Matter of fact the network card (Realtek R8168) was recognized without a custom OEM.TGZ involved.  So not going to be any help to you.  I have restored it to a clearing station and started another preclear on the 3TB drive I mentioned earlier.  After looking at the manual I don't think it ever was VT-d compatible doesn't look like that was a bios option.

 

Don't know if this will help but my bios setting for MB ports are:

Storage Configuration menu

"Sata Configuration: Enhanced"

"Configure SATA as: AHCI"