x86_64 - BOOTMFR not detecting mounted ISO

[jasonmirons]

Hi there

Have a x86_64 instance on VMware.

I'm trying to book from the attached CDrom ISO image to upgrade to the latest release.

However when jumping into bootmgr, its not detecting the CDrom.

Device is defined as an IDE CDrom. Worked fine for the initial installation.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Regards

Jason

[racingmars]

Not sure if this is the problem you're running into, but I remember when I was first playing around with E9.2-1 on ESXi, if I kept the hard disks on the SCSI controller (and the CD-ROM drive on the SATA controller), once I had initially booted from the CD and installed to the hard drives, I could boot from the SCSI hard drive but then could never see the CD-ROM device on the SATA bus ever again. It seemed like once installed, VMS could only see one disk controller, not multiple disk controllers.

So I just started creating my OpenVMS test VMs by moving the hard disk to the SATA controller along with the CD-ROM drive, and deleting the SCSI controller when I was creating the VM.

But in your case, if you are indeed already installed on SCSI disks, I think you'd be able to proceed with your upgrade by going into the BIOS boot menu of the VM (e.g. edit the VM, in VM Options -> boot options, choose 'The next time the virtual machine boots, force entry into the BIOS setup screen.') and forcing it to boot from the CD-ROM drive (so you're booting from the CD and using *its* bootmgr to then continue the boot from the CD drive), and the installer should be able to see your hard disk on the SCSI controller just like it did during initial install.

[dmjb]

Ran into the same issue and can confirm that you need to explicitly go to the boot menu of your VM and select the CD/DVD drive in order to be able to boot the ISO image.

Personally, I think this threw me off because the x86 VMS boot manager looks like the old VAX or Alpha system consoles, but in practice, it behaves more like Linux's GRUB or Windows' BOOTMGR (i.e. it is mainly for managing the boot off the locally installed OS instance, and the system's boot menu is what you use to select the boot drive).

[jasonmirons]

Many thanks for the suggestions. After a couple of attempts managed to boot and detect the ISO image.