- Create a complete image of the current disks. Then recreate the Raid 5 array with 6 disks. Then restore the image. Seemed to be risky and time consuming.
- Create a dual boot on an extra partition running Windows Server 2003. On this OS we could install Dell OpenManage to reconfigure the disk array. It seems like almost impossible to create a dual boot with ESXi.
- Install ESXi version from Dell including OpenManage http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R215992&formatcnt=1&libid=0&typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=306537. Since this is not just an update it probably requires to setup all VM's again.
- Use a linux live-cd with OpenManage installed on it. It seemed the dell community worked on this and created a CentOS live-cd including OpenManage 5.5. See http://linux.dell.com/files/openmanage-contributions/
I tried option 4 first, since it seemed to be the safest option to start with. I downloaded the ISO and burned it to a CD. Then I went to the server, inserted the CD, rebooted and kept my fingers crossed. Unfortunately, this last step did not help. When the live-cd tried to recognize the SATA controller it raised an error:
'Fatal error occured - Data for LiveCD not found. Are you using SCSI?'
The LiveCD had problems detecting and initializing the SATA controller of the Dell 2970. Looking on the internet showed me that more users had this problem. My solution for this was to create a bootable USB stick containing the CentOS OpenManage ISO. To do this I downloaded UNetbootin from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Again, fingers crossed, I went to the server, placed the USB stick in the USB port at the back. Fingers crossed... Rebooted into the USB stick, the boot was succesful! I had to login with sluser / sluser. Then I saw the linux prompt. On another PC I started my internet browser and went to https://ip_of_server
Hmmkay.