I think if I had to keep the guests going (and Vmotion to another host isn’t an option) I would download the VMware tools iso file for your guest os from http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/4.1u2/index.html, copy it to your datastore, and then attach the iso file to the CD drive in the guest and install as normal. Then at least you will have VMware Tools installed in your guest VMs.

As to fixing the root cause, I think some more investigation is in order. Maybe have a look at esxcfg-info -s? You get way to much info, but if you redirect it to a file and have a look through it for ‘usb’ maybe it’ll yield some insights. Feel free to post it here if you want. Maybe compare it with one of the working hosts that you have? If you also try vmkfstools -P /vmfs/volumes/Hypervisor1 on one of the working hosts, it’ll print out where the Hypervisor1 partition actually lives on the usb disk. Maybe that partition doesn’t exist on the bad machine?

Check out this post too -> http://vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/check_system_partitions.php , maybe you have a bad partition in there somewhere?

Hope some of that helps!
Graham.

@Graham – I don’t see missing partitions as you have shown in this blog. I do see however missing Hypervisor1 through 3 on the effected machine (I’m not getting the same sort of output from fdisk -l, so it’s most likely just me…)

I used the 4.1 iso install and pointed it at the USB keys each time. Your fdisk solution sounds like it would’ve worked for me too.

Cheers,

Graham.

I pulled the USB key and placed it in my linux box, ran fdisk, went to expert mode, and fixed the partitioning and now vmtools works.

My situation is probably different from you all, in that this is a white box with a Gigabyte motherboard (Gigabyte Motherboards do not play well with ESXi USB keys), I dd’d the image after I bunzip’d the installer from vmware, and this a restore from backup.

Not sure why but I could build my machine using the 4.0 iso but could not w/ 4.1 so I dd to a USB key the 4.1 version. I suspect it is due to the IDE Hard Drive I use, if I use a SATA HD it will build. After I dd the image, I restored the settings using vicfg-cfgbackup

Another issue could be that this is a Gigabyte Motherboard and at one point I attempted to fix the partition order to get it to boot of the USB key. I fixed it by place this key on a linux box and going into expert mode and fixing the partition order.

[Internal] IBM Embedded ESXi system is missing partition 8 which prevents VMware Tools images from being mounted (#1038851)

We’re running ESXi 4.1 (U2) on x3650 & x3850′s

Nice to hear from you. I blogged once about how to add a package to an arbitrary repo but I’ve never mentioned running a VMware tools repo before. I’ve have blogged about running ESXi on a USB stick, but this is really a workaround for a bug that crops up when you run on a USB stick.

I’ll try to be a bit clearer in the future. It’s hard to get the balance between too much background detail and “just the answer” , and I definitely tend towards the former!

Cheers,

Graham.

Thanks for this – will go and read again, but wondered whether you’d already blogged about (a) the repo/unmanaged solution and (b) running ESXi from a USB key ?

Again, thanks