Initially, I thought that the storage controller was not supported. I realized later that it was the unsupported NIC chipset that was the culprit. I was having trouble finding detailed instructions on how to build a custom install. After installing ESXi to a flash drive on one system and booting it on the 980, this is the workaround I came up with.

1. Placed a drive from the 980 into a 620
2. Installed ESXi 4.x to the drive
3. Placed the drive back in the 980

You now have it installed, but with no network support.

1. Boot to a Linux live CD
2. Copy the essential files and make the necessary edits
3. Reboot to the drive and configure as normal

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/download/file.php?id353&sid3e10a09e7d7386730d913a67a9d268ca

In the oem.tgz I've modified the etc/vmware/simple.map to include the line:

8086:10ef 3041:103c network e1000e

and modified the etc/vmare/pci.ids to include the lines (under the Intel Corp section):

      -0ef  82578DM Gigabit Network Connection (SCI to e1000e)
                3041 103c  HP Compaq Elite (SCI to e1000e)

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1549883

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f13&t2263&p7252#p7252 http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f12&t1735&start10

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f17&t4

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f12&t2194

http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/ESXi_USB_install.php

http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/find_PCI_ID.php

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/277183;jsessionidB34BFD8181641BBD796418D92E93A488?start0&tstart''0

– Main.FredPettis - 2010-07-23