Hello,
Firstly, I apologize for my other threads that relate to this same matter. I'm trying to tackle this from as many different vantage points as I can, and I want to make sure that I get the help I need for whichever path I'm exploring here is going to yield the results I need 
I'm trying to install this driver to my ESXi host: http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/drivercd/esx-net-igb_400.1.3.19.12.1.html . Unfortunately, I'm kind of in a tough place since I need the vSphere CLI tools to install this driver, and in order to run the CLI tools I need to be able to contact my host via the network - it's rather chicken and egg.
I've been playing around with running ESXi in VMWare Server, and I'm able to install both it and the driver there. I thought, why not take this vmdk image with the installed driver, convert this image to a raw image, dd it to my USB drive, and boot off this drive? Unfortunately, I was unable to boot from my USB drive after doing this, there must be some sort of trick to make the device bootable after doing this?
Will this approach work? If not, can you think of any other creative approaches for installing this driver? The card I'm trying to get working is the Intel Pro/1000 GT Desktop adapter: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16833106121 , and the driver is reported to get this card working here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1297887 .
In regards to the aforementioned other paths, I also investigated acquiring another NIC, but because the machine I want to use only has a PCI slot and not a PCI-E slot it sort of looks like it's the Intel Pro/1000 GT Desktop adapter or bust!