Installing ESXi on the Dell host fails with a purple diagnostic screen - Error: "Two filesystems with the same UUID have been detected"

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• Installing ESXi on the Dell host fails with a purple diagnostic screen
• You see an error similar to:
  
  The system has found a problem on your machine and cannot continue. Two filesystems with the same UUID have been detected. Make sure you do not have two ESXi installations.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Cause

This issue occurs when Mirror mode option is selected in the BIOS on the internal SD module that has second internal SD module slot empty or that has two SD modules installed and the Mirror mode is disabled.

Note: By default, Internal SD Card Redundancy option is set to Mirror. If it is set to Mirror mode, the data is written on both the SD cards. If any one of the SD card fails, data is written to the active SD card. The data from this card is copied to the replacement SD card at the next boot. This option is displayed only if Internal Dual SD Module (IDSDM) is installed on the system board.

Resolution

To resolve this issue when there is only one SD module in the system, disable the Mirror mode option in the BIOS on the internal redundant SD card modules in the Integrated Devices Screen.

 

For more information on the Integrated Devices Screen to disable mirror mode on the internal redundant SD modules, see the Dell PowerEdge Server model (M620) Owners Manual.

 

To work around this issue if there are two internal SD card and Mirror mode is disabled in the BIOS:

1. Restart the system.
2. During the reboot, when the hypervisor screen appears, press Shift+O.
3. In the boot option, run this command:
   
   overrideDuplicateImageDetection
   

Note: This is applicable only for the instance of boot process.

 

After the system starts, use any one of these options to remove the duplicate ESXi installation:

• Wipe the second SD module:
  
  To wipe the second SD module:

1. Identify the drive from which you want to remove the ESXi installation.
   
   For example:
   
   disk_name_of_second_SD_module
   
   where disk_name_of_second_SD_module is the drive from which you want to remove the ESXi installation.
   
   
2. Run this command from the console:
   
   # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disks/disk_name_of_second_SD_module
   conv=notrunc

• Use the vSphere Client to add the datastore to another ESXi host and format the disk (volume) that contains the duplicate installation. Reboot the original host.