Installed ESXi 4.0 from CD without any problems
(had to install intel pro GT 1000 nic)

- MB: Gigabyte 965P-DS3 (BIOS F14d)
- NIC: Intel Pro 1000 GT (gigabyte onboard not working) x 2
- CPU: E6300 (Intel Socket 775, Dual Core 1.8Ghz) supports VT and 64Bit
- DISK: standard seagate Sata2 disk in first Sata port
- CD: Installed off old PATA dvd drive
- VIDEO: Old S3 Virge PCI from the 90's
- AHCI: working with AHCI enabled or disabled in the MB bios
- Board supports Raid but did not test with any Raid config.
- The Motherboards onboard SATA controller is ICH8

Hello

Does this mean that Intel pro/1000 GT is not support out of the box?

I am about to order a new card and was thinking about this one
PWLA8391GT aka Intel pro/1000 GT but judging from your post
it doesn't work and some line adding (simple.map) is needed ?

The Pro/1000 GT will work without modifications.

Thank you Dave

Card is ordered and cant wait to test it.

Sorry to resurrect an old post but I have only just stumbled upon it. I am using pretty much the same Motherboard and NIC combo as you (mine is a 965 - ds3P

ESXi installs fine to my 1gb flash drive but when the server reboots I get an error saying

cannot get bank 1 parameters
Warning : Bank 1 partition type invalid. ignoring

cannot get bank 2 parameters
Warning : Bank 2 partition type invalid. ignoring
Panic : no usable banks found

I have tried installing from CD to USB and also tried creating the USB ESXi image with Winimage.

Any ideas?

See if this helps - http://doomdogus.wordpress.com/2009/10/ ... herboards/.

Thanks Dave, I am running windows 7 so FDisk is not available and I dont quite follow that guide. Would I need to use something like hireins boot disc to use fdisk? But then what commands would I need to run on the USB?

How did you make out with this? You could also use a Linux live CD.

I gave up on installing it to a USB stick and just installed it to a SATA drive, unfortunately this is the only spare I have so its where my VM's and datastore are sitting too.

ESXi uses a RAM disk to operate so once it has booted there is a minimal amount of activity to the install disk.