S2600CP and VMWare 5.5

[CHolz1]

Hey all,

I'm trying to install ESXi 5.5 on my S2600CP and having some issues. I'm installing from an UEFI-enabled USB drive and when it gets to the point where it says "Initializing ACPI" it hangs there for about two minutes, then resets. The board is on VMWare's HCL list, so in theory it's supposed to work. I've seen forums were people suggest increasing the amount of video ram, but I added a PCI-E video card with no luck. I'm assuming I'm missing a BIOS optoin somewhere, but have no idea which one.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance

[JFox4]

I have a similar, problem. I upgraded a working VMware server with this update:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=23610&keyword=S2600Cp&lang=eng Download Center

And now I get the same problem as mentioned in the message above:

Vmware Esxi 5.5 sits on the Initializing ACPI message of the boot process for a little while and then the server resets itself and starts the boot process over again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and is needed urgently as the server is down at this time and I can't figure out how to get it back up and running.

[CHolz1]

I solved my issue. When you create your USB boot drive, use the MBR format, not UEFI

[JFox4]

I'm going to re-post my issue as the fix mentioned for this does not correct my problem as I am not performing a new install and I need to get the problem fixed ASAP.

[CHolz1]

Sorry to hear that. I don't know what your setup is, but if your data is on a separate datastore, you can just re-install 5.5 and re-attach the datastore to it.

If that doesn't work in your case, I would like to hear how you end up solving it.

FWIW, here's my post on SpiceWorks that got me thinking

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/445597-intel-s2600cp-and-vmware-5-5?page=1# entry-2994723 Intel S2600CP and VMWare 5.5 - Spiceworks

[KT5]

I've searched around and tried a few how-tos, but I really don't know how to make my USB drive use the MBR format instead of the UEFI format. I was able to create an MBR using DISKPART in Windows 7, but I'm using unetbootin to take make a bootable image from the ISO, and there's nothing in there about MBR vs UEFI so I suspect I'm just overwriting everything.

Is there a link or tool you can share to cluestick me a little about explicitly using MBR?

[CHolz1]

Check out Rufus, it works great for burning ISO's to USB

[KT5]

That worked great, finally got this box up and running. Thanks for the quick reply.