I'm well aware that I'm trying to install VMWare ESXi 5.1 on hardware that's not on the HCL. I can't find my motherboard on the ultimatewhitebox site as well. I acknowledge these issues in advance. What I'm trying to find is someway to access the logs during installation or see a console or log file to see where the installation is hanging at and remove a device or change a setting in the BIOS. The installation is hanging, not getting a purple screen of death.

I thought by hitting ALT+F10 or F12 (or some key combination as such) would enable me to see the console but no such luck. I haven't been able to find much within the ESXi online documentation either.

Here's the parts I'm using:

• AMD Phenom II x3 700
• MSI 890FXA-GD70 (IOMMU capable)
• 16GB DDR3 1333 RAM (2x8GB DIMMs)
• Intel Pro 1000 (Dual-GbE) PCIe x4 (removed during installation)
• LSI 9211-8i PCIe (removed during installation)
• LSI 9201-16i PCIe (removed during installation)
• Matrox video card

BIOS settings:

• IOMMU is enabled (during 5.1 IOMMU successfully loads)
• AHCI is enabled (hangs for 4.1)
• Both onboard Realtek NICs are disabled

For ESXi 5.1, the installation hangs after vmkapi_v2_0_0_0 is loaded. For ESXi 5.0, it hangs when loading the vmklinux_9 module. For ESXi 4.1 U3, the installation hangs during loading of ahci module.

Again, I'm looking for some way to view a console (service console?) or log file during or after an installation attempt to see what verbose error messages or logging can lead me to solving this problem.