ESXi 6.0 U2 host fails to boot after upgrade from 5.5 U3

Products

• VMware
• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• The ESXi 5.5 host was using megaraid_perc9 driver for the RAID Controller Dell PERC H730 to which the local boot disk was attached.
• You have upgraded ESXi from 5.5 U3 to 6.0 U2 using DELL OEM ISO
• Post upgrade, the ESXi host fails to boot with the error:
  Error: file:///ks.cfg:line 3: Error (see log for more info): Could not find boot partition

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware Update Manager 6.0 Beta
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 6.0 Beta
VMware Update Manager 6.0
VMware vCenter Server 6.0.x
VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.x

Cause

ESXi 6.0 U2 OEM ISO from DELL did not contain the megaraid_perc9 driver and the lsi_mr3 native driver for the H730 perc adapter was disabled on recommendations from DELL due to some stability issues in the environment.
Hence, after the upgrade there was no driver to claim the local boot disk which resulted in the boot failure.

Resolution

Note: Revert back to altbootbank using Shift+R during boot, to bail out of the corrupt install.

To resolve this issue:

1. Prior to the upgrade, put the ESXi 5.5 host in Maintenance Mode.
    
2. Verify if lsi_mr3 driver is disabled:
   
   grep lsi_mr3 /etc/vmware/esx.conf
   
   You see entry similar to:
   
   /vmkernel/module/lsi_mr3/enabled = "false"
    
3. Enable lsi_mr3 by running this command:
   
   esxcli system module set --enabled=true --module=lsi_mr3
    
4. Load lsi_mr3 by running this command:
   
   esxcli system module load --module=lsi_mr3
    
5. Reboot ESXi host.
    
6. Verify that ESXi host boots up with the lsi_mr3 driver for the boot disk controller
   
   esxcli storage core adapter list |grep -i lsi

HBA Name Driver Link State UID Description
-------- -------------- ---------- -------------- ------------------------------------------------------
vmhba2 lsi_mr3 link-n/a unknown.vmhba2 (0:3:0.0) LSI / Symbios Logic Dell PERC H730 Adapter
    
7. Remediate the host using the 6.0 U2 OEM ISO.

Workaround:
If you have already upgraded to 6.0, you cannot fix this issue since it has booted from ramdisk and the changes will not persist to the boot disk due to no disk being available. You will need to revert to the previously installed version (5.5) available in the altbootbank using the steps in KB Reverting to a previous version of ESXi.

Additional Information

The lsi_mr3 native driver for this adapter was disabled on recommendations from DELL due to some stability issues in the environment. For more information, see ESXi 5.5 stability or performance issues when using PERC 9 on PowerEdge Servers.