Category Archives: Hardware

Recover ESXi 7.x Bootbank

November 15, 2022 1:06 PM / Leave a Comment /

During the the installation of a VMware VIB file I lost connectivity to my usb stick containing the installation of esxi. Facing the following errors within ESXi Log:

Could not install image profile: Failed to copy files from /tmp/stagebootbank to /altbootbank: [Errno 5] Input/output error

Device or filesystem with identifier mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0 has entered the All Paths Down Timeout state after being in the All Paths Down state for 140 seconds. I/Os will now be fast failed.

Lost connectivity to storage device mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0. Path vmhba32:C0:T0:L0 is down. Affected datastores: BOOTBANK1″, “BOOTBANK2”, “LOCKER-624c4a59-8a3bf37a-8986-e435c87de92a.

After a reboot I saw the error message “BANK5: not a VMware boot bank” however BOOTBANK2 was intact so ESXi was booting with last working state from BOOTBANK2 (BANK6 in my case). Checking with “ls /altbootbank” I saw that alot of files where missing. I started to check if the filesystem was damaged with:

#Check ESXi bootbank device
vmkfstools -P /altbootbank

#Check and repair filesystem
dosfsck -r -w /dev/disks/mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:5

While mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0:5 is the output of the previous command and :5 is the partition number. So :5 is BANK5 and :6 is BANK6.

Afterwards you can completely copy over the contents of /bootbank to /altbootbank with “cp”. You need to edit boot.cfg and modify “updated” to a number lower (-1). While the next VIB or update/patch you install on esxi will completely maintain the bootbanks again.

Posted in: ESXi, Hardware, vCenter, VMWare / Tagged: , , , , ,

Boot Batocera from HDD/SSD

September 5, 2022 1:47 PM / 17 Comments /

Recently I acquired a Fujitsu Futro S740. Its sold as a thinclient, but is technically a full blown pc with a small SSD (8 or 16GB). I replaced it with a M.2 2280 B+M Key SSD and planned to use it as “Retrostation”. I tried recalbox, however the S740 only allows GPT/EFI boot, there is no legacy mode anymore. So I tried batocera. It boots well from the USB Stick but after installing to the SSD from the Menu it doesn’t boot.

You can fix this by booting a Live Linux Distribution of your choice. I used Ubuntu MATE, can be downloaded here and burned to an USB Flashdrive. Afterwards boot with the USB Flashdrive and then you just register it to the BIOS via Terminal:

efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sda -p 1 -L "Batocera" -l '\EFI\BOOT\bootx64.efi'

The command won’t work from within Batocera, using a bootable linux of an USB stick is mandatory.

Reboot and have fun.

Posted in: Hardware / Tagged: , , ,

JBOD with HP Smart Array P410i

August 27, 2014 9:26 AM / 1 Comment /

I was trying to install NAS4Free (FreeBSD) on a HP ProLiant DL380G7. I entered Configuration Utility for the RAID Controller (HP Smart Array P410i) and removed all logical drives, as there is no need for a hardware raid if you’re going to use ZFS. I assumed no logical drives = JBOD but I was wrong.

The HP Smart Arry P410i does not support JBOD Configuration. HP seems to be aware of this so they created a…hmm… kind of a workaround. Simply boot up the latest smartstart package and start the smart storage configuration utility. In there you can create an array with RAID0, there is even a button for it.

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Press “Create Array with RAID 0”.

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Select all available disks.

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After that you created a RAID0 on each physical drive.

Thats it. Its no pass-through but works like jbod.

Good luck.

 

Posted in: Hardware / Tagged: , , , , , , ,