Local Disks not detected in ESXi 5

A

a2vr6

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 6, 2006
Messages
104
Got around to configuring an old AMD box I had, originally had trouble installing it in the first place (no disks detected) but after fudging with the console (on the ALT+O) screen I managed to get it to detect the two disks (couple of 500gb hitachi's).

Rebooted and was able to connect to it using Vsphere console, everything is fine except there are NO datastores available or even listed. Anyone have any idea how to proceed, here is how my server is configured:

Asus M2A-VM
2x Hitachi 500gb sata drives configured AHCI via BIOS
Onboard NIC (Detected fine and able to console/ssh to the server)
4gb Ram
AMD 3x Phenom


Any help would be appreciated. thx
 
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go to the configuration tab, storage, click add storage and see if it detects any luns.
The installer should have formatted any local volumes as vmfs, but see if it appears when going through the add storage wizard.
 
does it list the drives in storage adapters under the adapter in question?
 
Is there somewhere I can force the mounting of the disks? Everything looks to be detected fine when I checked the console:

lspci -v
000:000:00.0 Host bridge Bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 Host Bridge
Class 0600: 1002:7910

000:000:01.0 PCI bridge Bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (Internal gfx)
Class 0604: 1002:7912

000:000:07.0 PCI bridge Bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 PCI to PCI Bridge (PCI Express Port 3) [PCIe RP[000:000:07.0]]
Class 0604: 1002:7917

000:000:18.0 SATA controller Mass storage controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 Non-Raid-5 SATA
Class 0106: 1002:4380

000:000:19.0 USB Controller Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI0)
Class 0c03: 1002:4387

000:000:19.1 USB Controller Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI1)
Class 0c03: 1002:4388

000:000:19.2 USB Controller Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI2)
Class 0c03: 1002:4389

000:000:19.3 USB Controller Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI3)
Class 0c03: 1002:438a

000:000:19.4 USB Controller Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB (OHCI4)
Class 0c03: 1002:438b

000:000:19.5 USB Controller Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 USB Controller (EHCI)
Class 0c03: 1002:4386

000:000:20.0 SMBus Serial bus controller: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller
Class 0c05: 1002:4385

000:000:20.1 IDE interface Mass storage controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 IDE
Class 0101: 1002:438c

000:000:20.3 ISA bridge Bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB600 PCI to LPC Bridge
Class 0601: 1002:438d

000:000:20.4 PCI bridge Bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge
Class 0604: 1002:4384

000:000:24.0 Host bridge Bridge: AMD Inc Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration
Class 0600: 1022:1200

000:000:24.1 Host bridge Bridge: AMD Inc Family 10h Processor Address Map
Class 0600: 1022:1201

000:000:24.2 Host bridge Bridge: AMD Inc Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller
Class 0600: 1022:1202

000:000:24.3 Host bridge Bridge: AMD Inc Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control
Class 0600: 1022:1203

000:000:24.4 Host bridge Bridge: AMD Inc Family 10h Processor Link Control
Class 0600: 1022:1204

000:001:05.0 VGA compatible controller Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS690 [Radeon X1200 Series]
Class 0300: 1002:791e

000:002:00.0 Ethernet controller Network controller: Realtek Realtek 8168 Gigabit Ethernet [vmnic0]
Class 0200: 10ec:8168
 
lspci won't get you anywhere on this version.

In the client, see if the drives are listed under the SATA adapters. if not, the controller/drives/drive settings may not support the required SCSI commands. Check there first, lets see if they're even showing up.
 
try fiddling with the modes to see if you can find one where it shows up. ESX requires SCSI, or at least a drive/card that will effectively emulate scsi commands, for VMFS. Don't know if that card will.
 
Try changing the SATA controller from IDE to AHCI in the BIOS... err maybe back the other way since you've already done that it looks like.

I never used a board with the SB6xx southbridges. I had no trouble with the SB7xx and SB8xx ones though in AHCI.
 
I've tried everything, i did manage to locate the following blog though which looks to be the fix I am looking for:

http://andysworld.org.uk/2011/09/20...-vsphere-esxi-50-adding-a-qle-220-to-esxi-50/

It looks he was able to add an unsupported device, what I am confused is how did he pull the driver module from the tarball file? What directory can I find it so I can extract the file I am looking for or can I just modify the ahci.map with the proper entry info? A bit confused...
 
Anyone have any idea why there are no *.v00 files under the /bootbank directory? I found a fix specifically for my issue (its even for the exact same hardware). The steps aren't working for me since any changes I make are gone after I reboot (and the *.voo file is only found under the /tardisk folder) any idea?

http://www.tm3.ca/2011/11/7/esxi-5-old-hardware-and-you
 
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You have to commit the changes back to the bootbank - everything in esxi lives in memory. sadly, this point is not my area of expertise - but someone who plays with unsupported bits should be around to help shortly :) We've got a couple of driver guys here.
 
Hopefully someone can chime in before I splurge on a LSI Megaraid card I've been eyeing.... :>
 
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