Cisco UCS C-series server boot options missing.

Cisco UCS C220-M5 server boot options missing.

Today I have unpacked and installed a brand new Cisco C220 M5 server for one of our customers. That was, by the way, the first M5 server I worked with.

I did everything as usual:

• Assigned IP address to CIMC
• Configured RAID array
• Installed ESXi 6.7

After I successfully installed ESXi 6.7 to a virtual drive I got stuck, because server would not boot, it went straight to UEFI shell. The RAID controller was not in the boot option list.

This is what i had on my boot menu screen:

The thing is that these servers now have UEFI Boot enabled in BIOS by default. Previous versions (M4) booted ESXi right after installation and required no modification in BIOS.

So if you don’t see your RAID controller in boot option menu, go to BIOS and make sure you have Boot Mode set to Legacy Mode:

After you have enabled Legacy Mode you will be able to boot your freshly installed ESXi hypervisor.