I am new to VMWare ESXi and trying to install it to test it out for possible production deployment. I have obtained an older server to perform testing. I am having difficulty installing the VMWare ESXi to the Server.
Machine Information:
SuperMicro PDSG4
Pentium D
3WARE 9550SXU-8LP
2 Seagate Barracuda 250 GB Drives ST3250310NS -- SATA
Steps so far:
Went into RAID controller and setup RAOD 0 with the two drives.
Went into BIOS and made sure that SATA 0 and SATA 1 were both set to NONE, since read that AUTO can cause a problem.
I put in ESXi 4.1 Update 1 Install disk and gives me a message about failing to install, because it has nowhere to put the image.
Typing lspci, it appears that it dected the 3WARE controller
Output of screen read...
000:003:07.0 Mass Storage Controller 3WARE INC 9550SX SATA-II RAID PCI-X
000:000:31.2 Mass Sotrage Controller Intel Corporation 828016B/GB/GR/GH ICH7 Family SErial ATA Storage Controller IDE [vmhba1]
I type fdisk -l and no partitions or drives are listed.
I tried changing the TargetFilter.py file to ISCI and ISATA and recompilling the install file and I am still encountering the error.
Question:
1. What can I do to get ESXi installed on this server?
2. Do I need to format that drive as ext3 or something of that nature? Does VMWare ESXi require a preformatted drive? If so, how should I format and partition the drive? Will GParted work?
3. Am I using the right version ESXi 4.1 Update 1? Or Should I try ESXi 3.5 for 32 bit OS?