No network adapter found. Need to convert one machine to VM (noob).

[pjw73nh]

Greetings,

I am very new to ESXi.  I am familiar with the concepts, as I have used Sun Virtualbox in the past.  

At this time I have one objective to accomplish, and it is utilizing a network and devices that are completely isolated from any production machines/networks.

Here is my situation:

I have an HP Proliant server that I purchased recently that will ULTIMATELY be used as an ESXi host (for a proof of concept that VM works to the powers that be). It is used. It has a registered, valid, supported and complete installation of Windows Server 2008 on it that I would like to preserve.

I want to "save" this 2008 server as a VM using the VM Converter, and then install ESXi 5 on that server, and then copy the original 2008 VM back to the (now) host and have it run there as a guest VM.

My difficulty is that I only have one 64 bit machine at my disposal to use as a host.  A dell Inspiron 1720R laptop. It has 6 gb ram and a blank 250 gb HD.  I have several win XP 32 bit machines I can use as to run the client. My plan was to use this laptop as my "temporary" host to convert and store the VM files of the 2008 server.  Then install  ESXi on the HP proliant and copy/convert the VM back to run as a guest on the original hardware host.

Here is where I am at:

I boot up off the the ESXi install Cd and it eventually brings me to a point where it says "No network adapters were detected" and gives me a choice of F9 or F11.  Exit or Retry.  I am certain it is a driver issue but I am unsure as to how (if at all possible) I can remedy the issue.   I know the hardware is good because if I put a hard drive with a WIN 7 OS on it into the laptop it boots and runs just fine.   The built in network adapter is an Atheros PCIE v2.0.2. 

Again, I am new to ESXi.  If anyone has some solutions to this driver issue, or perhaps another (overall) means of accomplishing my goal (saving the original WIN 2008 install as a VM to be used on the same machine as a host)  I would be grateful.

Thank you.

P....

[ranjitcool]

Okay, so the problem is the network adapters are not on vmware hcl.

You will either have to get its drivers and slipstream into the esxi disk - http://www.vm-help.com and do a whitebox hcl lookup and follow the steps.

R

[Larry2148 · Accepted solution]

You might also be able to work-around this by just using VMware workstation on a trial license as the host you move it to- that way you're not worried about your hardware being supported by ESXi.

[pjw73nh]

RJ, Thank you for the reply. Unfortnuately, I am using ESXi5. the link you sent me too only mentioned 3.5 and 4. Further, I am not sure how to "slipstream" a file into an ISO. Also, if I were to look for a driver for the onboard NIC, which one would I use?  Windows? Linux?  ? 

Larry, if your solution is simpler I'd be very interested in giving it a try. As I mention, I only need this to convert the one machine for a very short period of time. Will your solution do this?  And if so, might you explain a  bit further so I can start the process.

Thanks.

Paul....

[BharatR]

Hi,

This is not the Driver Issue,

Need to check the Laptop Hardware whether it is compatible with the ESXi 5.0 which you are trying to Install

Here is the Link for the Compatibility Guides under the Compatibility Guides tab:

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

Check with the Tool also for VT is enabled in the Laptop

[Larry2148]

Sorry for the delay, it most certainly is a problem with the driver.

Basically what I'm saying is that the bare metal hypervisor requires a driver built in for the network card to work - that's expected because the hypervisor is basically an OS and if it can't work with the NIC you are out of luck.

The workaround that I can think of is this: by using VMware Workstation instead, it will be a program installed on top of an operating system which DOES have drivers, therefore you will be able to have VM's on there.  You can use the VMware converter to convert it over to the workstation machine, run it for a couple days (might be slower and you can probably just get a 30 day evaluation for the software).  After you have a working copy on the VMware workstation you can upgrade your host and then "convert" it back to the new host.

Try this out and let us know if you run into snags I haven't thought of along the way.

Regards,

Larry

[pjw73nh]

Thanks Larry and the rest.  I wanted to update you all on what I found/did.

VM Workstation did the trick (albeit a "little tricky") The only snag I ran into is pretty much the same as with the native based install. The NIC issue. I installed a trial version of win2008 server.  It didn't/couldn't find the nic.  I went to the Atheros web site to look for a WIN 2008 server NIC driver for the card. Nothing. I took a chance and installed the Windows 7 NIC driver they had.   Worked great.    Then I installed the VMware workstation trial, connected to both machines and did my conversion and it appears to have worked.  I can get the converted VM to light up on the laptop (host) but there are a few issues (I am not that concerned with them).  When I powered on the VM, I got errors that said something about problems with the serial and parallel ports ) the converted machine had them, the host does not).   I also got a program error with one small piece of shareware.  Again, I am not that concerned.

Is there anything else I should do/test with the VM on this temporary host, before I blow away the original (converted) machine and install the VM host software on it?

Thanks again for all the help.  I'm usually a quick learner,  it's just that this is all a bit new for me and I don't really have personal/physical access (other than the forum) to a mentor.

Thanks.

P........