Cannot get vmware to boot from anything other than network

[uhaligani]

Hi,

I have a new install of ESXI 5.1

I can create a vitual machine, but I cannot get it to boot from either cd-rom or from a iso image on the local disk.

It always tries to boot from the network.

I have tried hitting ESC during boot, and connecting the cdrom device to both of the above mentioned, and then selecting the cd-rom on the boot menu.

It still only tries to boot from the network.

I have tried removing the network device from the virtual machine before booting. No luck.

I have tried both a windows 2012 standard and a windows 2008 R2 disk. No luck.

I have read a number of knowledge base articles and nothing is working.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Kahonu84]

Aloha,

Have you verified that the media is bootable from another machine??

Bill

[uhaligani]

Hi,

Yes both disks are fresh microsoft partner disks which do boot in another machine.

Also, I of course know that the cdrom is ok as I was able to load the esxi disk on the server.

It appears to not ever check the cdrom or the iso before going to network boot as there is no spinning noises or delay.

Ed

[uhaligani]

One more item,

When I enable the boot time diagnostics from inside the vmware setup screen (that you get to by hitting esc) during boot, I can see a very quick message which flashes by identifying the cdrom drive and the mouse before it switches to the network boot screen,

Ed

[a_p_]

There are sometimes issues with physical CD-ROMs and local ISO images, but I never had and issues with the ISO file on a datastore. Did you already try this? Upload the ISO to a datastore and select it from the VM's CD-ROM settings. Also make sure "Connect at Power On" is enabled.

Something else you can try is to let the VM boot to the PXE screen (don't power it off). Then double check that the CD-ROM is connected and connect it if needed. After that press CTRL-ALT-INS to "warm boot" the VM.

André

[uhaligani]

Hi,

I have now tried a iso in the  datastore as well with no luck.

With each of the three locations I have tried the "ctrl-inst" hit "esc", make sure that the cr-rom is connected either to the d: drive, the local host iso or the iso on the datastore, then choose the cd-rom in  the boot menu, but still the virtual machine only tries network boot

[a_p_]

Just to rule this out. When you say it is connected to ..., does that mean you selected the drive or ISO file and enabled the "Connected" checkbox in the VM's settings?

André

Message was edited by: a.p.

[uhaligani]

Hi,

At this moment.

The cd-rom icon shows cr/dvd 1 is connected to the datastore iso and the vmsettings show the "connected" box as checked.

doing a ctrl-alt insert softboot, hit esc and choose cd-rom for good measure, still only attempts boot from network

Ed

[a_p_]

That's really strange. I'm doing this since years and never had any issues with ISO files.

As a test, can you try to boot the VM from a live CD/ISO (e.g. gParted) to see whether this is an issue with the images you currently use?

André

[uhaligani]

Hi Andre,

I have already proven that both disks I tried to boot from work, are you thinking that the iso image I created is bad?

I guess I can burn that back to disk and prove it is good.

So your experiment is to download gparted, upload it to the datastore and see if it boots, right? I will try this, but I expect the issue will not be my iso.

I will let you know what happens.

Ed

[jrmunday]

Does this happen to all VM's, or just a specific one?

[uhaligani]

I only have created 1 vm, it's a new install.

I have made some progress, following Andre's suggestion, I downloaded the memtest iso mt420.iso

I am able to get this to boot from both the datastore and from the local machine.

So going on the assumption that isocreator and windows server 2012 ended up giving me a bad combo, I will use something else such as magiciso and windows 2008 r2 to create an iso and see if that works.

Ed

[uhaligani]

Thanks all for the ideas

Answer was 1) vmware can't read from my cr-rom and 2) isocreator from sourceforge created bad iso images for 2008 r2 and  2012 standard. When I created the image with isodisk it boots just fine.

Ed