I’ve had a couple of installation issues with ESX4
One was particularly strange, the install process would freeze every now and again until i pressed a key on the keyboard. This was related to AMD’s power saving C1 mode – disable this in the bios to fix this problem.
Secondly it was a problem with my nic. Essentially i didn’t have card that was supported (realtek). After inserting a intel card all was well. This fires up a ambiguous error and cans the whole install. (lvmdriver error)
It was nice to see that my pata drive was supported – i’ve been using it for quick tests but was unsure if it was supported in vSphere. Note: i’ve got a flash card enclosure that i’m planning on using in the future, just awaiting the card. (hopefully this saves me some power)