Dissapearing VMs

[koolaidkitten]

I have what was an ESX 4.1 server that I recently upgraded to ESXi 5.1
I put the machine into maintnance mode, did the upgrade, everything seemed like it went off without a hitch.
However If i reboot the server it comes back just like it was after the update. It will be in maintnance mode still and any virtual machines I added will no longer be in the list. I can go find the .vmk file and re add them with no problems. Any idea what is causing this?
=====EDIT====
I also just realzied it forget my serial as well. After a reboot it cries about its only a 60 day trial or whatever until I input my serial key.

 

[koolaidkitten]

Figured it out. Was really simple. When I was dicking around in ESXi for answers I noticed my Drive that ESXi is installed on didn't show up in my DataStore options. I eventually made my way to the BIOS and changed that SATA controller from AHCI to Native IDE. I don't recall ever changing that option but I guess I did at some point. After changing it to Native IDE the drive showed up ESXi's DataStore options. I guess ESXi was running purely out of RAM and couldn't write back to the drive as it couldn't see it.

 

[lopoetve]

Most likely it just couldn't mount it.