hi
.... hours later, here is what I have found with my Dell R610.
- to fix this problem, you need to boot via UEFI ( only the back USB ports are apparently visible to UEFI )
- after restoring the boot.cfg for BIOS and EFI, I was able to install esxi 6.7 with the bnxtroce.v00 loaded without an issue.
To clarify "found", was a lot of searching for the right things and finding helpful posts.
- someone else reported that VMW version worked for them under UEFI
- I proceeded to restore all the files I modified to see if I can bypass the errors somehow (wishful)
- I think this confirms that it is a BIOS incompatibility issue with older servers
- my R610 server issue, also frustrating, since I had esxi 6.5 installed on it before === just had to use the back-USB ports for UEFI to see the device
- creating a bootable USB for VMware esxi was also not fun.
- also found out that syslinux 6.x is not supported for esxi 6.7 ( I am running Linux Mint 19.2 ). Have to download 3.86, "make installer" and then transfer that to USB. This was for BIOS, which I ended up not needing in the end )
I am now installed and running! ( took a few days, on/off research )
good luck.