Trouble loading drivers for HighPoint 4320 RocketRAID to ESXi server

As this card is no listed on the HCL ESXi 4.1 will not support it directly.

It should be possible to embed this driver into ESXi 4.1.

I cannot discuss this further on EE, as it requires modifying VMware Source code, I'm afraid, which is in breach of EE guidelines and VMware EULA.

Check the White Box HCL for details

http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/esx40_whitebox_HCL.php

Also check the Vmware Community Forums.

See a previous EE post on specifics that should help you:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/26476179/Raid-Driver-for-VMware-ESXI-4-1-0-Raid-card-9690-Se-Install-problems.html
As well as here:
http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/2010/03/add-additional-drivers-to-esxi/

but rememeber this is not on the HCL.

I do apologise it's listed on the HCL for ESX / ESXi 4.1

    * 1. rr272x_1x version 1.0
    * 2. hptiop version 1.6

RR4320 is listed on the HCL, ESXi 4.1 when starting should pick-up automatically this storage contoller, does it appear in the Storage section when looking with the vSphere GUI Client?

the drivers are already included in ESXi 4.1.

this is how you do it:-

looks like the drivers are not included, you need to download drivers and following the instructions in the pdf below:-

http://www.support-highpoint-tech.com/Main/RR3xxx_4xxx/Vmware/vmware-esx-hptiop_400-v1.6.tar.gz

http://www.support-highpoint-tech.com/Main/RR3xxx_4xxx/VMware/RR4xxx_driver_installation_vmware4.pdf

When I read the document it states something about offline-bundle.zip. I don't see this located on the driver cd. Any idea on what that is? Thanks for your help.

it's on the cd in the folder offline-bundle.

There is not an offline-bundle folder on the CD. Downloaded the same PDF earlier but thought I might be off base since the CD doesn't include this file. Maybe I need to try and find another copy of the software?

download this:-

http://www.support-highpoint-tech.com/Main/RR3xxx_4xxx/Vmware/vmware-esx-hptiop_400-v1.6.tar.gz

Ok... I didn't have anything on my computer to read that type of file. I now can see inside the file and I can see the offline-bundle. However, I'm still not following on how to get this transferred to the ESXi host. I'm sure this is a simple process but it isn't registering... Thanks agian.

the easiest way is to use Veeam FastSCP or WinSCP to upload the offline-bundle.zip file to your ESX server /tmp folder.

http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esxi-fastscp.html

have you enabled your Server for SSH access?

Awesome... I got the offline-bundle.zip uploaded to the temp folder of the ESXi server. Thanks for the hint on using winscp. I'm horrible at the whole command line stuff. Now that I have it in the temp, what do I need to do in order to get it to see the raid. Sorry for being so ignorant on this but this is my 1st rodeo. Thanks for hanging in here with me...

1. Shut down all VMs.
2.Put the Server in maintenance mode from the GUI.
3.Login into ESX server via SSH

(sorry command line coming here)

4. Navigate to the /tmp directory.
5. cd /tmp
6. esxupdate --bundle=offline-bundle.zip update –-nosigcheck

(make sure you've got the correct offline-bundle.zip name

8. restart ESXi 4.1 server.

it's listed in the HCL.

The Raid Card doesn't support ESXi 4.1.