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Dammitbobby
Contributor
Contributor

Tyan Transport GT20 Dual Xeon Based

Enviroment

Will be using ESXi for Home to sharpen my skills and to support my family. I want to setup multiple XP vm`s and use RDP for the kids. I have a lot of problems with them messing up the XP boxes at home and I am getting tired of rebuilding machines every 6 months. Also I want to have hands on experience with ESXi and a Lab enviroment for testing without buying an expensive server.

Server

I ordered the Tyan box after I found out that ESXi was free. I was able to buy this box came built in with 2gb nics, video card, Adaptec Sata raid0,1,no cpu,no memory,no drives. This box cost me under 100 bucks shipped to my door. I bought CPU, 2 500gb WD drives and 1gb 8port switch all for under 300 bucks. I found 2g of ECC Registered memory in a old machine.

What works

I was able to install ESXi after I removed one of the SATA drives. I guess my idea of Raid 0 and 2 SATA drives is not going to work. Installed Ubuntu workstation and it appears to be working. RCLI virtual appliance.

Problem

When setting up XP I noticed that there was no .flp to point the virtual floppy drive. ESX by default has this folder on the local storage drive. Downloaded what I think is the correct floppy vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp. However the first part of the install appears to work fine but after the install reboots the first time to finish installing XP I get this message NTDLR is missing. Anybody have any ideas that might could solve my problem.

Thanks

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3 Replies
nick_couchman
Immortal
Immortal

You need to make sure that the floppy disk is removed from the drive upon reboot (after the initial install). Uncheck the "Connected" and "Connect at Poweron" boxes in the floppy drive settings and boot - installer should continue.

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Dammitbobby
Contributor
Contributor

CRAP!! I haven`t setup a XP workstation in many months and forgot about the floppy drive! I was so use to the templates that I forgot how to install XP.

Oh well good news is that it works! I have $350.00 invested in this project with used free memory. I think I will try to find some more memory and get this up to at least 4g. I will keep everyone posted on how this server works. So far no lock ups.

Thanks for the quick responce.

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Welcome to the VMware Community forums. If your question has been answered you can mark the thread as answered and Nick's post as correct.

Thanks.

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