ESXi flash drive failed, how to retrieve previous setting files from it?

[VirtualPat]

I have was running ESXi 5.0 off a Sandisk Cruzer 1GB USB flash drive but the system started acting weird (slow) so I rebooted it, when it came up the server couldn't boot from it so it appears some files on it got corrupted? Before the reboot I was able to use the VMs on that server so the file corruption must not have been that bad. I'm going to reinstall ESXi on another USB stick.

To save me the pain of reconfiguring the networking and virtual hardware in ESXi (I didn't backup those settings), which directory and files would I need to copy over to get those previous settings applied to the reinstall ESXi?

To access those files, do I need to do anything special to mount that old USB drive in Windows or Linux? Will those OSes recognize the file system on it? If not, how do I get access to what's on it? Thanks for any help!

[ramkrishna1]

Hi

Welcome to the communities.

If flash drive access-able from other system then there is possibilities.

"a  journey of a thousand miles starts  with a single step."

[peetz · Accepted solution]

The data partitions on the ESXi USB drive are FAT partitions, so you are able to access them from within Windows or Linux. In Windows you may first need to assign drive letters to the partitions using the disk management tool.

Look for two partitions that are 250MB in size and for a file named state.tgz on them. Pick the most recent one of the two copies and copy it over to the newly installed USB drive. After the initial installation only one of the two 250MB partitions on this drive should contain files - replace the state.tgz file there with the copy from your old installation.

- Andreas

[VirtualPat]

Thanks for the replies, the USB stick did mount in linux and I was able to find the state.tgz file (there was only one copy). I replaced the existing state.tgz on my new USB stick and the old settings now show up.

I should note that my previous USB stick had ESXi 5.0 Update 1 on it, for my new USB stick I used ESXi 5.1. I hope swapping state.tgz files like this won't cause any weirdness later.