Fresh Install of ESXi 5 - Disk Boot Failure

[moneymm]

I just put together a new unit.  8 Core Processor, 32 Ram, 1TB HD.  I am stuck when trying to install VMware ESXi 5.  using Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 motherboard.

Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and  press Enter, is the message it says after loading operating system...

I threw in an old dell windows reinstall cd to see if it bypassed this error, and it did.

I tried another .iso file of another windows copy, and it gave me the same error as the esxi 5 disk.

Any ideas?  Is it possible that my motherboard doesnt recognize iso files as bootable files?

P.S.  I have to keep my HD unplugged, b/c when its plugged in im getting "NTLDR is missing, Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" error message.  Im hoping once I get esxi installed, I can update all the drivers, and get rid of this error, so that I can load from the hard drive.

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Community,

Is it possible that my motherboard doesnt recognize iso files as bootable files?

When you burn a CD, don't burn the ISO file as a file on this CD, but use the "Burn Image" function of the CD burning application.

André

[moneymm]

thanks, always something stupid isnt it.

After the install, it said it had to reboot, I removed the cd as it told me to, but now im left with a black screen with a blinking cursor.

[stdatiho]

I got the same symptom after I rebooted as well.

HW configuration:

GA-970A-D3

AMD Phenom X4 960

1T WD BlackLabel

Asus HD 5450 650MHz Video Card

Connected in AHCI mode from BIOS

BIOS version = F7

There was no problem during the fresh install of ESXi5; and the confirmation of successful install message was shown at the end.

Once the system rebooted, the screen is black with blinking cursor from top corner. Tried to reinstall ESXi5 again and again, the

keyboard was frozen at the last screen of complete install stage. Won't let me hit "continue". It's weird.

Anyone has a clue?

Thank you!

[a_p_]

The blinking cursor in the upper left corner usually indicates an issue with the Master Boot Record on the disk. What I would try to do is to repair the MBR using e.g. the gparted live CD or clean up the whole disk using either gparted, a Windows 7 boot DVD with diskpart, ... and run the ESXi installation on the clean disk.

André