ESXi doesn't have a driver for this controller. http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi3. ... le.map.php

Does ESXi list an unknown storage controllers? Does the MB have an nVidia MCP or Intel ICH controller?

its ATI cintroller

You'll need to add something else - take a look here - http://www.vm-help.com/Whitebox_HCL.php.

Hi ABDOWALID

You need to set the SATA configuration to AHCI in the bios.

Don't set it to ide emulation or raid or whatever. Only AHCI will work. After this you should be able to see the storage if you have patched the ESXi install CD / USB correctly.

Regards
Jens

@Jens - I just wanted to say that your oem.tgz worked perfectly for my 8111c realtek card. You are the man!!

@Jens: your oem.tgz worked for me as well in getting my MCP61 sata controller to work. Did you compile the nv_sata_n.o driver yourself or was it taken from somewhere else (esx perhaps)?

Hi dhrto

It is taken from ESXi 3.5 u2 (there seems to be a bug in nv_sata.o in 3.5 u3 when using MCP61).

Regards
Jens

Jens - we tried your r8168.o, and seem to be experiencing issues such as bad http requests. Can you update the r8168.o with the latest release from RealTek? We will pay you for it if you can do it immediately.

Thanks so much,
Andy

Hello,

I've read this thread numerous times and I am confused. To recap:

1) Jens originally wrote that he got GA-MA78GM-US2H with BIOS: F3 working and posted an OEM.tgz

2) grocks replied that his setup does not work and that he has the unsupported ATI driver "IDE interface Mass Storage Controller: ATI Technologies Inc Class 0101: 1002:439c"

3) Mishchenko interjects that 1002:4392 is not supported. And we never hear from grocks again.

4) In the meantime, Jens posts his modified simple.map showing "1002:439c 0000:0000 storage ide" which leads me to believe that although not supported, ATI will work.

5) ABDOWALID says he is having trouble geting the same motherboard with the ATI driver to work and Mishchenko again states that there is no driver for ATI and points ABDOWALID back to the whitelist.

6) Jens then posts that ABDOWALID needs to make sure that he is running in AHCI mode. but we never hear from ABDOWALID again (albeith it's only been two days)

Jens, can you confirm that, a) yes, your mobo is in fact using 1002:439c even though it is NOT supported and b) I can use your OEM.tgz without modification?

I'm trying to get my GA-MA78GM-US2H with BIOS: F3 and 1002:439c and have spent about 5 hours so far with no luck. I think it might be that I am not creating the CD correctly (I can't create a USB booter as I get the "bank" problem because apparently Gigabyte MB's are notoriously bad with live USB) but want to make sure that I am on the right track believing I can simply plug your OEM.tgz in to my Esx3i 3.5 update 4 download image.

Thanks,
Richard

Okay I got it to work and yes, Jens' OEM.tgz works without modification on Update 4.

The steps I took were as follows (please read through them as a couple of the steps are false starts, for those trying this at home):

1) Downloaded Update 4 and burned to bootable CD using Roxio on Windows
2) Booted off the CD and saw the message saying "Unable to find a supported device to write VMWare ESX Server 3i version 3.5.0 image to"
3) Copied files on the bootable CD to Fedora 10 Linux instance
4) Deleted original OEM.tgz and replaced it with Jens' modified copy
5) Executed: mkisfofs -l -J -R -r -T -o /tmp/esx3-custom.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.catalog -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table iso
6) Copied the newly created ISO back to Windows and burned CD#2 with Roxio.
7) Booted CD#2, got past the "cannot find drive" message, loaded ESX to my SATA drive, removed CD#2, rebooted, got really excited, and then got a kernel panic message saying it couldn't find the disk
8) Went back to my Linux instance and followed the instructions here http://www.grid.org/blog/cameron/updating-vmware-esxi-disk-dump-file to get Jens' oem.tgz into the dd image that gets written to the SATA drive during the install. Step 4 is necessary but that only gets you as far as installing ESX on the SATA drive. You need this step too.
9) Re-executed the command in step 5 to create CD#3
10) Booted CD#3, installed, removed CD#3, rebooted and now its working.

So, for those trying this for the first time you can skip steps 5, 6 and 7 to get this working. If you are grumbling about having to use Linux, I tried Windows first but could not create a bootable CD using ISO Recorder 3.1 on Vista. It would create an ISO but after burning with Roxio it wouldn't boot.