How do I install a guest OS on ESX5.5 - it will not boot to ISO file

[bmannino]

Hi,

I was able to install ESX 5.5 on a Dell PowerEdge 1955 Blade Server and the installation went fine.  I installed the vSphere Client and create two Virtual Machines with no issues whatsoever.

I am now trying to install the Windows Server 2008 R2 trial from an ISO image file downloaded directly from Microsoft, but it only cycles through the Network PXE boot process and stops there saying "No Operating System".  I have tried several different methods:

• attaching the ISO from my local machine
• uploading it to a datastore, then attaching it from there
• entering the ISO image to boot directly from startup (this was an option in the VM settings)
• set it to boot to the BIOS first and then configured the CD as the first boot device

None of these worked, and I verified that the ISO file is OK by installing to another blade directly through Dell's DRAC.  I want to have it run as a VM instead of on the bare metal, but cannot understand what I am missing here.  I also tried downloading an ISO image here for vCenter and that won't boot either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Ben

[Michelle50]

Hi

Welcome to communities.

seems ISO got corrupted , try to burn that ISO and boot from cd\dvd to make sure ISO is ok.

.

[corvettefisher]

Ensure that the CD/DVD drive is connected at boot

Close the vsphere client and reopen it sometimes you will get stuck with "connecting"

Recreate the VM

Additionally you could connect to the host directly and attempt to boot and install the VM through there.

[Cyberfed27]

Yep make sure the check box under the virtual CDROM is set to 'Connect at power on'.

That's usually what gets most people who aren't familiar with VMware.

[stl_dano]

I am having a similar issue. I have installed ESXi5.5 on a Dell Blade.

I have pxe boot setup, and response is "no boot filename found".  This work well on my physical servers in the same subnet

Ideally I want to pxe boot my servers.

I tried installing from an ISO on my laptop, which is running the VSphere,

On client device, I can get it to mount the CD on my laptop AFTER the boot sequence

but device status connected/connect at power on is grayed out.

On the host device or datastore ISO file, I can connect at power on, but the datastore is ONLY connected to the VMs, so I cannot write the ISO to the datastore prior to building a VM. Also since the phsycial server is a blade there is no CD rom device.

I read extensively on the web, and the best suggestion was bad network setup, but the network setup seems to be operating correctly.

Suggestions??

[bmannino]

Thanks everyone.

I did try just about everything mentioned here.  Attached is a snapshot of the CD-ROM setting with the VM powered off.

I tried on 2 or 3 different VMs with the same result.  Still stumped on this one..

[FritzBrause]

Putty into the host where the VM is registered.

Go into VMs home folder and supply output from:

grep -ir ide *.vmx

Would like to see how the configuration file looks like.

Also supply output from:

grep -ir ide vmware.log

There should be something like:

vmware.log:2014-07-17T10:52:17.336Z| vmx| I120: DICT           ide0:0.fileName = /vmfs/volumes/535a51dc-e28173cc-56ae-00215af60bd6/windows.iso

vmware.log:2014-08-11T08:43:51.612Z| vmx| I120: CDROM: Connecting ide0:0 to '/vmfs/volumes/535a51dc-e28173cc-56ae-00215af60bd6/iso/VMware/vCenter/VMware-VIMSetup-all-5.1.0-1235309.iso'. img=1 raw=0 remote=0

[Rubeck]

It looks like you're trying to boot of an vCenter .iso... This isn't bootable...

But maybe your screenshot is just an example of what your VM is configured like.. ?

/Rubeck

[Cyberfed27]

Rubeck is right. You are trying to boot an ISO that isn't a bootable ISO.