ESXi 6.7 "Operating System not found"

[optymal]

Hi everyone,

I have an HP ProLiant server with ESXi 6.7 configured, on which I have 3 virtual machines installed, one with Windows Server 2008 and two with Windows Server 2016.

Since yesterday I have a problem with the Windows 2008 VM. When I start this virtual machine, I get a black screen with white letters and the following error "PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM. Operating System not found".

I have checked the .vmdk file with vmkfstools but it did not detect any errors.

Could someone help me with this problem?

Thanks in advance.

[Ank_S]

Hello,

Can you share how many VMDKs are attached to this VM ?

[optymal]

The main vmdk file is the one highlighted in blue. The one highlighted in red appears in the ESXi options as a backup.

[Ank_S]

The one ending with 000001.vmdk is a snapshot disk for the .vmdk file.

1) Can you confirm if it is taken by a Backup software (Veeam etc) or is it created from a Manual Snapshot.

2) If it is a manual Snapshot, try attaching the 000001.vmdk to the VM (SCSI Controller 0:0) and then try to power on the VM and see if it helps.

3) Check if the SCSI Controller used is "LSI Logic SAS" or "Paravirtual"

Else,

1) Create a new VM without any disk.

2) Attach the existing .vmdk to the new VM and then power on.

Also ,

1) SSH to the ESXI host.

2) Browse to the location of the VM under "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore_Name/Original_VM_name"

3) Run command "ls -ltrh" and share the output.

4) Share the output of the .vmx (config file).

5) Share the vmware.log.

[Ank_S]

Were you able to resolve this ??

[optymal]

Hi to everyone,

After several tests I detected that the virtual disk of my VM had been formatted, I don't know why. I got an old backup of the VMDK file and managed to mount a new virtual machine with that file using VMWare Converter.

You can close this case.

Thank you all for your help.

[scott28tt]

This isn't a "case", and as the creator of the thread you can mark any of the responses as the "solution" using the 3 dots menu to the right of any response.