ESXi host unable to boot after modifying boot mode from Legacy BIOS to UEFI

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• A VMware ESXi host is unable to boot following a hardware configuration change modifying the boot mode from Legacy BIOS to UEFI.
  
  
• The host fails to load the ESXi hypervisor during the initial hardware boot sequence.
  
  

  [   10.396780] Error parsing PCC subspaces from PCCT
  [   10.711090] ACPI Exception: AE_ERROR, Returned by Handler for [PCI_Config] (20####30/#######-300)
  [   10.711096] ACPI Error: Method parse/execution failed [\_SB.P##3.B##A._HPX] (
  Node ffff88#####b1c08), AE_ERROR (20####30/#####-543)
  [   11.121152] kvm: already loaded the other module
  Loading modules
  /lib/modules/4.10.1/extra/mpt3sas.ko
  [   14.002418] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] No Caching mode page found
  [   14.002636] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
  Removing builtin i40e driver and reloading new i40e driver
  /lib/modules/4.10.1/extra/i40e.ko
  Looking for networking configuration in CVM partitions
  Installing RAID utilities.
  mdadm: failed to get exclusive lock on mapfile
  mdadm: failed to get exclusive lock on mapfile - continue anyway...
  mdadm: /dev/md/2 has been started with 2 drives.
  mdadm: failed to get exclusive lock on mapfile - continue anyway...
  mdadm: /dev/md/1 has been started with 2 drives.
  mdadm: failed to get exclusive lock on mapfile - continue anyway...
  mdadm: /dev/md/0 has been started with 2 drives.
  Looking in partition /dev/md
  Partition /dev/md mounted successfully
  umount: can't unmount /mnt/cvm_home: Invalid argument
  [   50.672817] EXT4-fs (md0): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
  [   50.673109] EXT4-fs (md0): couldn't mount as ext2 due to feature incompatibilities
  Looking in partition /dev/md0
  Partition /dev/md0 mounted successfully
  umount: can't unmount /mnt/cvm_home: Invalid argument
  [   60.723791] EXT4-fs (md1): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
  [   60.724082] EXT4-fs (md1): couldn't mount as ext2 due to feature incompatibilities
  Looking in partition /dev/md1
  Partition /dev/md1 mounted successfully
  umount: can't unmount /mnt/cvm_home: Invalid argument
  [   70.823380] EXT4-fs (md2): couldn't mount as ext3 due to feature incompatibilities
  [   70.823695] EXT4-fs (md2): couldn't mount as ext2 due to feature incompatibilities
  Looking in partition /dev/md2
  Partition /dev/md2 mounted successfully
  umount: can't unmount /mnt/cvm_home: Invalid argument
  mount: mounting /dev/sda on /mnt/cvm_home failed: Invalid argument
  Looking in partition /dev/sda
  Partition /dev/sda mounted successfully
  umount: can't unmount /mnt/cvm_home: Invalid argument
  umount: can't unmount /mnt/cvm_home: Invalid argument
  Looking in partition /dev/sda1
  Partition /dev/sda1 mounted successfully

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.0.3
VMware  ESXi 8.0U1 or later versions
Nutanix Hardware
 

Cause

The UEFI boot order was incorrectly configured or reset following the firmware mode conversion, preventing the hardware from locating the ESXi boot volume.

Resolution

 

• Engage your hardware vendor (Nutanix Support) to modify the hardware UEFI boot order.

• Correctly prioritize the ESXi bootloader volume within the hardware UEFI boot sequence.

• Reboot the ESXi host.

• Once the host successfully boots into the hypervisor, open an SSH session to the ESXi shell.

• Verify the current firmware presentation using the following command to ensure the host is operating in UEFI mode: vsish -e get /hardware/firmwareType

 

Additional Information

For further details, please refer to the following Broadcom Knowledge Base article: ESXi 8.0.3 Unable to Boot After Installation on Nutanix NX-G7 Series