ESXi 4.1 Install Help

[tntcoder]

Hey,

(Probably shouldn't be doing this on xmas day but anyway...)

I can't get ESXi installing on my whitebox, hoping someone might have some ideas.

Im running on an ASUS P5Q-VM D0 / 8gb DDR2 / Q8400 which according to this post is very good compatibility wise and all should work out the box (wishful thinking i guess).

So I burned the esxi cd and that came up with this error after i said to start installing to my usb key (same happened if i said to install to a hdd).

I'm using AHCI for SATA but the same happens with IDE mode - but all drives/usb show up on the install screen.

So from here I assumed it didn't like my DVD drive, so I made a USB install flash drive, and it gets to the same point and gives the same "cant find system image to install" error when I choose to install it to both another flash drive or a hdd.

Any ideas on how to solve this missing system image error? BIOS is all up to date & the box has been memtest'ed.

Thanks a lot.

 

[tntcoder]

You could try just dropping the dd file directly onto the USB stick and booting from that? No need for the install step then. Worked for me on ml115

Hmm thanks, that sounds promising. Not to sure what you mean by the dd file though? Is that an alternative to the .iso installer? Some kind of dd image of a preinstall that I can just dd out onto the USB and job done?

EDIT: ah http://www.techhead.co.uk/how-to-create-a-bootable-vmware-esxi-usb-pen-drive that seems to cover the dd file approach - thanks again, shall give it a whirl


EDIT2: Thanks Mike imagedd.dd outputted to usb worked perfectly.