VCPaul has been so nice to share how he was able to create a bootable USB stick with the latest ESX 3i.
You can read his post in the VMware Community at
http://communities.vmware.com/message/825686
Or read it here:
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Requirements:
- 1 GB USB flash drive
- WinImage
- IZArc
Of course you can use your favourite tools and larger USB flash drives, but 1 GB is enough space for the boot image.
Perform the following steps to create a bootable ESX Server 3i USB flash drive:
- Download ESX Server 3i Installable ISO
- Extract INSTALL.TGZ from the root directory of the ISO image using an IZArc
- Extract /usr/lib/vmware/installer/VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.bz2 from INSTALL.TGZ using IZArc
- Extract VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd from VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.bz2 using IZArc
- Attach the USB flash drive and make sure you no longer need the data on it
- Use WinImage to transfer VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd to the USB flash drive
- Disk->Restore Virtual Hard Disk image on physical drive…
- Select the USB flash drive (Warning: If you select the wrong disk you will lose data!)
- Select the image file VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd
- Confirm the warning message
- Wait for the transfer to complete
- Unplug the USB flash drive (Warning: If you forget to unplug the flash drive from the PC you might lose the data on your hard drives the next time you boot!)
- Attach the USB flash drive to the machine you want to boot (Warning: If ESX Server 3i recognizes local drives, you might lose the data on it, so make sure you don´t need it anymore or unplug all hard drives!)
- Turn the machine on and make sure the USB flash drive is selected as boot device
- Watch ESX Server 3i boot
- Configure
- Enjoy!
I cannot be held responsible for any damage or loss of data this procedure might cause.
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Hope anyone can use this 🙂
I know I can….
A. Mikkelsen
I have tried this on 2 Dell Servers. PowerEdger T300 and a 2900. The systems will boot with the 3i USB but I can not change the IP address which is set to static 0.0.0.0.
Any advise or direction appreciated.
Hmm.
Can yuo do it if you boot on your laptop or in a VM ?
I’ve experienced the same, but I think it’s because ESX automatically sets the NIC to 1000mbit even if the nic is connected to a 100mbit switch.
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