Esxi on PE R620s

so I just received 3 nice shiney r620s from XByte and I'm having some issues getting esxi to work from USB. Servers just hang and it sucks. Haha how's that for venting without detail.

scottalanmiller

Where is it hanging?

scottalanmiller

The R620 should be the same motherboard as the R720 I beleiev. Can we get @Mike-Ralston to test that on an R720 in the lab?

scottalanmiller

Are you using the Dell VMware image?

scottalanmiller

ESXi 5.5?

using the dell 5.5 image. It hangs essentially when it's hunting boot devices. if i remove the USB it boots fine. i'm going to see if i can find another thumb drive.

I believe in the Bios you need to set the USB device as a Hardrive or similar. Also have you enabled Virtualization Technology in the BIOS? also USB Ports on dells server can be selectively enable/disabled in the BIOS for front/back ports. Aside from that it can be picky about which USB flash drives they boot of off.

@thecreativeone91 Virtualization has been enabled. all USB ports powered on. and there is no boot from USB option in the bios. I just went and picked up two SD cards, going to see if i can just use the front slow SD on these servers. What's oddish is the fact that I can initially boot to the USB to install ESXi on the usb. it's any reboot thereafter that seems to have issues. I can "work around" it by unplugging the USB, allowing it to "fail" to boot, and then plug in the usb to hit the boot menu, but if we have a power outage i dont want to have to drive 2+ hours to come take care of that :)

I did this just last week on a similar 610 or 620 can't remember which, with no problems. no telling. let's see if this SD will work

JaredBusch

Since you have more than one server, I assume you have tried different USB sticks?

JaredBusch

@thecreativeone91 said:

I believe in the Bios you need to set the USB device as a Hardrive or similar.

This is not required for VMWare.

@JaredBusch said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

I believe in the Bios you need to set the USB device as a Hardrive or similar.

This is not required for VMWare.

It was on my poweredge (2950/1950) servers otherwise it doesn't consider it the correct bootable device.

@Hubtech said:

I did this just last week on a similar 610 or 620 can't remember which, with no problems. no telling. let's see if this SD will work

What about a BIOS update? and what brand are these usb sticks?

JaredBusch

@thecreativeone91 said:

It was on my poweredge (2950/1950) servers otherwise it doesn't consider it the correct bootable device.

I've never virtualized on gear that old, so did not know that. All my virtualized stuff is R410 or newer gear.

Mike Ralston

Running some Internship training on those this evening, but I can check it out. Also, @scottalanmiller we have R520's here, not R620's.

EDIT My bad, I just skimmed the post and didn't read it. I'll check this out a bit later tonight, hopefully.

scottalanmiller

@Mike-Ralston said:

Running some Internship training on those this evening, but I can check it out. Also, @scottalanmiller we have R520's here, not R620's.

EDIT My bad, I just skimmed the post and didn't read it. I'll check this out a bit later tonight, hopefully.

Get those interns posting!!

I've got the servers racked up in my lab at home. I'll do some troubleshooting today (hopefully) or Sunday. I'll update you guys as soon as i've got something. the USB sticks are brand new kingston tiny lil dudes. I usually use the internal USB port.