The message "EXT2-fs warning: maximal mount count reached, running e2fsck is recommended." continually appears on the ESX server console.

Maximum mount count is set to -1

# tune2fs -l /dev/cciss/c0d0p1 | grep Maximum
Maximum mount count:      -1

It's a known problem in e2fsprogs.

ESX 3.0.1 uses e2fsprogs-1.32-15.1 and it was fixed in e2fsprogs-1.35-7.1.

Fri Apr 09 2004 Thomas Woerner <twoerner@redhat.com> 1.35-7.1
- fixed 'check after next mount' for filesystems with maximum mount count -1
(#117109)

http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=117109

This is cosmetic and should be ignored.

This issue has been resolved in ESX 3.0.2

Error Message, "EXT2-fs warning: maximal mount count reached, running e2fsck is recommended"
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/6822209