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lvaibhavt
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

ESXi installed on USB doesn't retain configuration settings in VMware Workstation

Hi All,

I have my LAB in VMware Workstation. I am running openfiler / ESXi / VC / DC in it.

I have installed ESXi on USB (in VM Workstation) and gave the storage settings (pointing it to openfiler) -- It works well however when I reboot the ESXi installed on USB, it looses all the configuration.

I understand this is something to do with VMware Workstation as ESXi is not able to retain storage settings after reboot. However when I install ESXi on local HDD (attached to ESXi) then it works well

Any suggestion on what can I make here.

Thanks

Vaibhav

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douglasarcidino
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

If I had to guess, and this is a guess. The USB drive is disconnecting before the machine reboots. ESXi installs in multiple ways depending on what you install it to when it comes to a host. If you install to a volume smaller that 5GB or to USB storage it installs as embedded and runs ESXi in memory. If you install it to a hard drive with a capacity of more than 5GB then it actually runs from the hard drive instead. My guess is that your USB drive is becoming disconnected at some point and ESXi is continuing to run or there is a problem with the USB drive or port in some way. We experience this when we install on SD cards and the SD card or adapter fail while the host is on. The host sees the disconnect but continues to function. When it reboots, it loses every change since last boot. Go to the console of the host and hit alt+f12 to look at the live log and look for errors on the USB HBA.

If this answer help you, please accept it as the answer.

Doug Arcidino

If you found this reply helpful, please mark as answer VCP-DCV 4/5/6 VCP-DTM 5/6
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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Next time run backup.sh before you reboot and then check the timestamp of state.tgz to verify if the script really had worked.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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