Guest OS very slow to install

[adamhodgkins]

Hi all,

I'm having problems installing a guest OS onto an ESX 4 box from an ISO file.  The issue is that the install is going extremely slowly, it is being installed onto a datastore that is held on an FC SAN, I've checked the free space and there is ample available, I've checked the resource usage on the host and it is not anywhere near the limits of what is installed, I've selected the recommended values for memory etc when creating the VM.

The OS is Server 2008 R2, and I selected this when creating the new VM.  I know that the ISO that I'm using is fine as I have used this in the past, but when the VM boots from the ISO to load the OS it is taking at least 10 minutes to get to the GUI to start the install.  Once the first part of that is done and it gets to the part of 'Copuing Files' I left it sat for 20 minutes and it was still on 0%.

I stopped the VM, removed it from the disk and tried creating a new one but I'm still having the same issue.

Anyone know what may be causing this / how to solve this?

Thanks

Adam

[piaroa]

How is the ISO file connected to the VM. Is the ISO stored on the FC datastore, or on your PC?

Also, do you have any other VMs that run slow on this host?

[adamhodgkins]

Hi,

The ISO is located on the vCentre machine, no other VM's on that host are running slowly either.

Thanks

Adam

[piaroa · Accepted solution]

Can you copy the ISO file to the datastore and then connect the ISO to the VM from there and see how it goes?

[adamhodgkins]

How do I go about getting the file to the FC datastore as this isn't visible to the vCentre machine?

Thanks

Adam

[piaroa]

Connect with vSphere client (from the same vCenter or from your PC). you should see the datastore in vSphere client. Right click it, the select Browse and upload the file to the datastore.

[adamhodgkins]

That has resolved it!  Thank you very much, you're a lifesaver!!!

Thanks

Adam

[piaroa]

Hey! glad it worked.