ESXi on Q1900M

[wraptor]

Well euhm... so yeah....

I've tried installing ESXi on but it keeps on saying "Relocating modules and starting up the kernel".

I did some googling and all I get is "ignoreHeadless=TRUE", this kinda doesn't work for me

 

Does anybody know a fix or can help me out?

[leadeater]

Go in to the bios and set the onboard video memory to 8MB or more, seen a few reports of your error message and that was the fix. The ignoreHeadless only works after ESXi is installed and is added to the boot parameters.

 

If you can't do the above or it doesn't fix the issue disable every onboard device that is not required to do the install, SATA/USB3/Audio/Network etc.

 

Also what version of ESXi are you trying to install, sometimes installing using an older version and then upgrading works.

[wraptor]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Go in to the bios and set the onboard video memory to 8MB or more, seen a few reports of your error message and that was the fix. The ignoreHeadless only works after ESXi is installed and is added to the boot parameters.

 

If you can't do the above or it doesn't fix the issue disable every onboard device that is not required to do the install, SATA/USB3/Audio/Network etc.

 

Also what version of ESXi are you trying to install, sometimes installing using an older version and then upgrading works.

I've set the onboard memory to 64MB, thats the lowest I could get  (Seen that 'fix' already, didn't work ether).
I already pre installed esxi on my desktop so I could move it into the machine once it arrived.
 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, tv15dsi said:

I've set the onboard memory to 64MB, thats the lowest I could get  (Seen that 'fix' already, didn't work ether).
I already pre installed esxi on my desktop so I could move it into the machine once it arrived.

I'm trying ESXi 6.0, I'll try a 5.x version

Damn pre-installing it was my next suggestion.

[wraptor]

Just now, leadeater said:

Damn pre-installing it was my next suggestion.

xD, Can't I plug it back into my pc and apply the ignore thing to the kernel with the developer shell?

[leadeater]

Still trying disabling the onboard devices if 5.x doesn't work, those are usually what trips ESXi up since it is picky on hardware and hates anything not server oriented.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, tv15dsi said:

xD, Can't I plug it back into my pc and apply the ignore thing to the kernel with the developer shell?

Worth a shot

[wraptor]

Just now, leadeater said:

Still trying disabling the onboard devices if 5.x doesn't work, those are usually what trips ESXi up since it is picky on hardware and hates anything not server oriented.

I cannot disable SATA nor USB since I'm installing to a sata drive from a usb drive xD.

I also disabled sound, network etc by default since I had a Pro/1000 PT Dual port card laying around.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

I cannot disable SATA nor USB since I'm installing to a sata drive from a usb drive xD.

I also disabled sound, network etc by default since I had a Pro/1000 PT Dual port card laying around.

Was hoping the USB2 and USB3 were separate controllers oh well. Usually I install ESXi to a usb drive, not really that helpful since you'll still need the SATA working regardless anyway.

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Was hoping the USB2 and USB3 were separate controllers oh well. Usually I install ESXi to a usb drive, still not really that helpful since you'll still need the SATA working regardless anyway.

Damn ESXi 5.5...

Command line is empty

Thats my error

[leadeater]

Tried switching between UEFI and legacy bios? If that is even possible on that board.

[KuJoe]

ESXi is really picky about hardware sometimes. I've run into some hardware (including servers) where it just will not install it on there and if it's not on VMware's supported hardware list they won't help you. Could it be the lack of VT-D instructions maybe?

[wraptor]

Just now, leadeater said:

Tried switching between UEFI and legacy bios? If that is even possible on that board.

I guess not, 5.5 didn't work ether.

[KuJoe]

My co-worker has some HP/SuperMicro servers that will only work with ESXi 5.0, give that a try and if that works then it's probably an incompatibility with newer versions of ESXi (if that doesn't work, it might still be but at least you'll know something will install).

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

My co-worker has some HP/SuperMicro servers that will only work with ESXi 5.0, give that a try and if that works then it's probably an incompatibility with newer versions of ESXi (if that doesn't work, it might still be but at least you'll know something will install).

I'll give  that a go

[wraptor]

4 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

My co-worker has some HP/SuperMicro servers that will only work with ESXi 5.0, give that a try and if that works then it's probably an incompatibility with newer versions of ESXi (if that doesn't work, it might still be but at least you'll know something will install).

Nope, same sh*t...

[leadeater]

Time to try out the wonders of Hyper-V? 

[KuJoe]

Just now, tv15dsi said:

Nope, same sh*t...

What kind of RAID card are you using?

[KuJoe]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Time to try out the wonders of Hyper-V? 

I was going to suggest XenServer or Proxmox as free alternatives because HyperV makes cry whenever I have to manage it.

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Time to try out the wonders of Hyper-V? 

Windows server wastes to much resources for a small pfSense and DNS/webserver box

 

Just now, KuJoe said:

What kind of RAID card are you using?

None, just 1 HDD

[KuJoe]

Just now, tv15dsi said:

Windows server wastes to much resources for a small pfSense and DNS/webserver box

 

None, just 1 HDD

Oh, I've never successfully installed ESXi on a server without a hardware RAID controller (mainly because VMware doesn't support software/FakeRAID, never tried a single hard drive before though). Actually, now that I think about it all my current ESXi servers have ESXi installed on a USB flash drive. Give that a try since you don't have a RAID card. Installing it on an SD card or USB flash drive is the recommended option from most server manufacturers (and on VMware's forums) these days anyways.

[wraptor]

2 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

I was going to suggest XenServer or Proxmox as free alternatives because HyperV makes cry whenever I have to manage it.

Windows Server requires me to give the host over 9000000 GB's of memory just for the UI, and windows is a pain in the butt to manage console whise

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

Windows server wastes to much resources for a small pfSense and DNS/webserver box

Not that I was actually being serious but you'll have to revise that view once Server 2016 Nano comes out, the whole install is less than 500MB.

 

Edit: Doesn't change the fact that I don't actually like Hyper-V.

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Not that I was actually being serious but you'll have to revise that view once Server 2016 Nano comes out, the whole install is less than 500MB.

But that will be on the end of this year or something. Not a solution for me right now.

 

And I'd like to use ESXi since I've got all VM's preconfigured and I'm lazy

[wraptor]

Now, does anybody have an idea?