ESXi 3.5 on HS20 8678 with IDE Controller

How to Install VMWare ESXi 3.5 on IBM HS20 8678 Blade with IDE Controller

I was trying to install VMWare 3.5 on one of the 32bit servers of mine for Virtulization. As you know ESXi 4.0 is for 64bit CPUs and if you want to install VMware Hypervisor, you must use ESXi 3.5 or ESX 3.0 which is not free.

If you look at Hardware Compatibility List for 8678, you will find out ESXi 3.5 is not offically supported. That's correct, you cannot install ESXi 3.5 if you have IDE controller (if you have SCSI controller, you cannot install it but it is still be unsupported configuration).

I googled it in couple of websites, and i can say the solution that find is workin successfully.

Problem occurs when ESXi 3.5 OS try to find your Hard Drive Controller. It is giving an error that setup cannot find any hard drive controller.

The exact error is,

Installation operation Failed!

The installation operation has encountered a fatal error: Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 image to.

Ok if you have this error, following workaround maybe a solution for you as well.

You need to reach ESXi's console by hitting ALT-F1 during that error screen. You need to access ESXi's console so you change some pre installation scripts by hand and make the problem gone.

You'll be prompted for a login, type root, just hit enter for password.

lspci for determinate what type of controller that you have

Mine is CSB5 IDE Controller, now you need figure that out that this soulution is solving your problem or not. To figure that out,

fdisk -l

If any outputs, you're ready for the next step, otherwise you might have one the unsupported controller types.

i.e. CSB6 RAID/IDE Controller (i couldn't make it work)

The next step is changing /usr/lib/vmware/installer/Core/TargetFilter.py file with vi

You need to search for def IDEFilter(lun) and change

return interface.GetInterfaceType() == ScsiInterface.SCSI_IFACE_TYPE_IDE

to

return interface.GetInterfaceType() == ScsiInterface.SCSI_IFACE_TYPE_ISCSI

:wq

After that you should install command by typing "install" in console. It will bring you ALT-F2, you need to ALT-F1 again to access console again. You will see (Enter Install) screen, press Enter then F11 for license confirmation. If everything is ok, you should see your driver in screen Select a Disk, Select your disk and Enter for continue.

That's it.

I hope you find it useful. For further info, check this site http://vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive/ESXi_install_to_IDE_drive.php

Typhoon Master