No boot after clean install

[buckmaster]

I have a generic Intel motherboard with a sata ich9 controller, home lab.  It has ran esx4 fine ever since esx4 beta.  When I load esx5 to hard drive or usb drive on reboot the monitor just displays a cursor.  When inserting the esx5 installer cd and rebooting you have two choices 1. Install Esx or 2. Boot from local HD.  When selecting boot from local HD, esx5 will boot from the previous install?  Seems like the bootloader is not correct.  Any ideas?

Thanks

[nalfonso14]

Hi!, first check the hardware compatibility matrix http://www.vmware.com/go/hcl..

When you select Local HD, in boot loader, the esxi 5 instalation is abort and process to run esxi preinstalled..

[nalfonso14]

if your hardware is in HCL its compatible to esxi... see any error in boot??? check if you see also

http://kb.vmware.com/1017162

[nkrishnan]

Also make sure that you have choosen right booting method (either EFI or BIOS). Use the same that you used it during the installation of ESX5.0 and check it

[buckmaster]

dead link?

http://kb.vmware.com/1017162

[nalfonso14]

ups sorry try this

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1017162

[buckmaster]

Thanks.  I'll give this a try when I get home.  Strange.  There must be something different about the boot process from esx4 and esx5?

[admin]

By default ESXi 5.0 uses GPT based partitions tables and not MBR like it did previously.  This allows you to have disks which are greater than 2TB in size, but some systems are incompatible with it (possibly including yours) or need to have the correct BIOS setting.

You can try changing your BIOS to see if it's compatible with EFI or will work in "legacy/compatibility mode".  Alternatively you can reinstall and use the "formatwithmbr" setting at the boot prompt which will cause the partitions to be set up the way they were in ESX 4.x.  Just add it in the same way you would to tell the machine to do a scripted install.

Hope that helps..

--Patrick.

[buckmaster]

Patrick you ROCK!!!

I've been struggling with this since RC with no solution.  Adding the boot option fixed my issue.  How in the world did you know about the boot option?

[admin]

I designed the installer and demanded that we have that feature.  :-D

One of the key features for the 5.0 release was that we wanted to support 2+TB disks.  We thought everyone would have BIOSes which were compatible with GPT when we started putting together the requirements back in 2009.  Since we were going to be migrating everyone over from ESX based partition tables onto the partition layout that ESXi uses, we figured we should start getting everyone to use GPT as well.  It works with any system on our HCL, but we knew there were bound to be some people out there with first generation 64 bit systems which didn't support EFI or BIOS based GPT.  We just didn't know how many people it would effect so we left in the option to partition with either.

On a related note, we also had a problem with migrating VMFS partitions from MBR to GPT which would have caused the VMFS partition to potentially have been clipped due to the secondary boot record.  If you upgrade from ESX 4.x or ESXi 4.x you still end up with an MBR partition table and not a GPT based one.  If you'd used VUM or the installation CD to upgrade your 4.x based system you wouldn't have run into this problem, but probably would have been scratching your head when you tried re-installing from scratch.  :-D

Thanks,

--Patrick.

[buckmaster]

Thanks again Patrick.  I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.  This is my home lab that I learn vSphere with.  So I know it's not on the HCL I'm just trying to learn on my home budget.  My vendor Intel for my motherboard "Intel® Desktop Board DQ35JO" stopped suppling BIOS updates in Dec 2010 so a BIOS upgrade was not an option.  It has a E8400 processor an even runs FT VM's.  Now when I'm on the road an need to reboot the ESX server I won't have to have the wife place the ESX installer CD in my server to boot with. :smileywink:

[volleyballdan]

Patrick, the formatwithmbr seems to help me as well..mostly. Here's what I'm doing and my issue. I run esxi5 bood CD.  do shift + O.  Erase runweasel...type in "formatwithmbr".  I'm not sure if this syntax is correct.  Anyway, ESXi5 loads great this way.  Issue is still upon reboot it won't load.  I've seen once after about 20 minutes it does load but this isn't acceptable.  MB is on HCL, so I'm stuck, and need help.  Thanks.

[admin]

volleyballdan:  Don't erase the "runweasel" command.  It's was causes the installer to start.  Without it you're just booting ESXi and nothing more.  Add the "formatwithmbr" and you should end up in the installer (weasel) and your drive with be formatted in a way that your BIOS can understand.

[wdbarker]

For anyone trying to duplicate these successes, "add" means type a space and formatwithmbr. I first tried a comma, and that didn't help. I didn't try a plus sign because a space worked. So, by "boot prompt" they mean the prompt you get after hitting Shift-O. And by add, they mean a space delimited addition of the string. "runweasel formatwithmbr". Clear as mud? I have no idea why it's so important to be obscure with these tips.

Oh, but "Thanks anyway" I really appreciate having only 3 things to try instead of the hundreds I'd have had on my own looking into the bootloader with no doc! Thanks Patrick!

[admin]

wdbarker:  I wasn't trying to be obscure;  I just didn't have access to a machine to test it out before I replied to the post.  I'm glad you got it to work despite not having clear directions.

Incidentally, I haven't worked on the installer for over a year, but I have talked with the dev. manager to get some better documentation.  Hopefully that will be forthcoming, probably in the way of a KB article.

[wdbarker]

Yes, my post probably sounded a bit rough. Please know that I’m very glad to have the information. I’ve been working with another vendor’s software lately and their doc is filled with items that appear to say something simple, but turn into a 20 minute research project just to figure out what they said. I really should have written:

For anyone trying to duplicate these successes, the boot prompt appears after you hit Shift-O during the boot process. You will see runweasel already in the boot prompt field. Left arrow to the end, add a space and formatwithmbr and press enter. The prompt will look like runweasel formatwithmbr

Thanks Patrick!

or maybe said nothing at all. My apologies.

Dan

[reffervasu]

thanks wdbarker it is worked for me on intel 945 gcnl mather board

[thnworld]

I also have the same problem with my x58 chipset with i7-920 systems.  it got to the point where it has ""Relocating Modules and starting up the Kernel.."" then reboots automatically.  Can someone help?  I tried to swap ot the graphic cards as well as disabling everything and only booting off the usb drive but none prevailed.  Same result, rebooting cycle.

[tzwaagstra]

An alternative if you want to keep GPT partitioning (e.g. for disks greater than 2TB), but your bios requires MBR:  hybrid mbr/gpt disk

There are several ways to create a hybrid mbr/gpt disk.  One such way is to boot into a linux live CD that has the "gdisk" utility.  At the command prompt become root with "su -" or "sudo -i" depending on the linux distro, then use gdisk to modify the partition table.  This writeup is from memory but should be accurate.  worked for me.  Follow the prompts in gdisk if it differs from here.

Hope this helps someone!

su -              [become root]

gdisk /dev/sda    [replace "sda" with the correct drive]

x                 [enter expert mode]

r                 [enter recovery / translation mode]

h                 [create hybrid partition table]

1 5 6 8           [select the correct partitions]

[enter]           [keep the current partition type]

n                 [not bootable]

[enter]           [keep the current partition type]

y                 [set this one bootable! gpt5, mbr2]

[enter]           [keep the current partition type]

n                 [not bootable]

[enter]           [keep the current partition type]

n                 [not bootable]

w                 [write changes to disk]

y                 [confirm]

q                 [quit]

[salmanearn]

Thanks Just to add My problem is resolved ,what i have done is actually cleaned the hard disk by using Disk Parted live iso . Then format it with GBT or MRB partition .It resolved my problem .

[Matt86]

this solution worked for me and I was able to boot my ESXi server

Thanks a lot for this post

[salmanearn]

Any idea i am getting a error. During initial install I press Shift-O when prompted.I  Add formatwithmbr to the options, proceed with install. Soon after this when it start loading

/tboot.b00

I got this error

Multiboot header is not found

/tboot.b00: Kernal is either invalid or corrupted

Fatal error:36 (Bad Type)

Thanks

[wdbarker]

I’d burn a new CD. It sounds like you have an invalid or corrupted install media.

Dan

[salmanearn]

I have make a iso of Installation CD ,the MD5SUM is the same . Actually I have tried 2 cds first of  VMware 5.0 and Second of the Vmware 5.1 .The same thing happing with both of them . There is just a thing that i am installing this from a external cd rom(bios is detecting it just fine) . The hard ware i am using is also on a vmware compatabale list . I may try to wipe out all the partitions on the harddrive using gparted ?

Many Thanks

salman

[salmanearn]

I have calcualted MD5SUM its perfectly fine .Any guess i am quit lost in that situation .

[kastilem]

You are awesome Mr PatrickD. Worked like a charm your catweasel fix. You saved me alot of heartache whilst trying to get an answer from Gigabyte. I am not sure they would come up with an answer at all.