Tag Archives: ESXi

Running esxi on lacie 5big

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If you are wondering if its possible so install esxi5 on a 5big (office) ,the answer is yes.

The way i did it, was to place the disc on a laptop with a esata connector
Then i installed esxi without any special option’s

After setup i placed the disc back into the 5big, and it did NOT startup
After some trail and error i was sure i needed to reset the netwerksetting, but there is no vga output so you need to do this blind.

I simulated the network reset on a other esxi system and i wrote down all the keyboard sequences.

The blind reset is:

0- hook up a USB keyboard on your 5big
1- wait until the system is started (wait 5 minutes, just to be sure)
2- press {f2}
3- press {enter} {enter}
4- press 4 times {down}
5- press {enter} {f11} wait 5 seconds, {enter}
6- press {esc}, wait 5 seconds, {f12} {enter} {enter} {f11}

Now the system wil reboot and if you have a DHCP server running, you will see that your 5big wil get a IP number, and you can connect

Because this system has only 2 Gb memory and not expandable, its not a very useful environment for a Esxi server.

At this time i’m not using the Lacie as a Esxi server, I made a downgrade to WHS2003
See this link for info: https://www.digisaster.com/?p=286

I will post some printscreens of the running esxi environment as soon i have the esxi bootdisc found.

 

Ntbackup problem on 2003 running on esxi

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After virtualisation of a 2003 SBS server we have the following error on the tape backup

Het apparaat heeft een fout gerapporteerd bij deze aanvraag: gegevens naar medium schrijven. Fout: Ongeldige opdracht. er is mogelijk een hardware- of mediumprobleem opgetreden. Controleer het logbestand voor systeemgebeurtenissen voor relevante fouten.

This is the dutch error for the following English error

Error: The device reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported: Invalid command.
There may be a hardware or media problem.
Please check the system event log for relevant failures.

This error is popup as soon as the tape is being written.

The backup log looks like something like this

========================================================
Error: The device reported an error on a request to write data to media.
Error reported: Invalid command.
There may be a hardware or media problem.
Please check the system event log for relevant failures.
The operation was ended.

Error: C: is not a valid drive, or you do not have access.

The operation was ended.

———————-

The operation did not successfully complete.

———————-
=========================================================

How did we narrow down this problem?

First we created a virtual XP machine and attach the tapedive to this machine
This test results in a working tapebackup. So we where 100% sure that this problem was not related to the device, or the tape

Then we re attach the tapedevice back to the 2003 server, and the problem was returning

Somehow the disc can’t be accessed when the tapedevice is starting

How did we solve this problem?

We created a extra scsi adapter in the ESXI environment. First we could not find a way to insert a extra scsi adapter, but after some search we find out to simply select device (1:0) on the tapedevice, and a 2e scsi adapter will appear on the ESXI config.
I changed the device to a buslogic parallel, so i would still know the difference between the virtual scsi controller for the discs, and for the tapedevice

After this change the problem was solved.