ESXi host displays an error and fails to boot when two ESXi installations are on the same system
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ESXi host displays an error and fails to boot when two ESXi installations are on the same system

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Article ID: 326371

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When two ESXi installations are available on the same system, you experience these symptoms:
  • The ESXi host fails to boot
  • You see the error:

    Two filesystems with the same UUID have been detected. Make sure you do not have two ESXi installations
     
  • This issue occurs when ESXi is installed on both the local hard disk drive and a USB drive


Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0

Resolution

To resolve this issue:
  1. Restart the system.
  2. During the reboot, when the hypervisor screen appears, press Shift+O.
  3. In the boot option, type overrideDuplicateImageDetection and press Enter.

After the system starts, use any one of these methods to remove the duplicate ESXi installation:
  • Identify the drive on which you want to remove the ESXi installation, and run this command from the console:

    # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disks/mpx.vmhba1\:C0\:T0\:L0 bs=1m conv=notrunc

    For more information, see Identifying disks when working with VMware ESX (1014953).
     
  • Initialize the disk from the BIOS of the SCSI controller, if available.
     
  • Install other guest operating systems on the disk that contains the duplicate installation of ESXi.
     
  • Use the vSphere Client to add the datastore to another ESXi/ESX host and format the disk (volume) that contains the duplicate installation.

Additional Information

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