I have a couple Dell T3500's that I'm trying to get ESX on for a lab buildout. Supposedly, they work but it ain't happenin' for me...
Right now I'm hung up during the install. I bypass installing custom drivers and then the next screen dies saying ESX can't find my Broadcomm NetXtreme 57xx driver. So, I downloaded the custom driver CD ISO for ESX 4 from here: http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/drivercd/esx40-net-bnx2x_400.1.48.107-1.0.4.html
I've made both a CD and a DVD using two different pieces of software to burn the ISO and no matter what I do, at the custom drivers 'add' screen it will not detect that CD/DVD as a custom driver CD. It just keeps popping the message saying that what I have in there is not a custom driver CD.
What on earth is the problem here. It seems like everytime I want to install VMWare on something I end up with some weird driver issue...this one is a first for me...
Thanks in advance!
Dell T3500, just like any other Dell that is not a PowerEdge server, is not in VMware HCL for ESX. End of story.
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
You have probably already read this, but... www.vmware.com/pdf/esx25_install.pdf might be worth reviewing...