USB memory stick usage in Win2008 Guest

[mikevl]

Hi

Is it possible to use a UBS memory stick in a Win 2008 guest. I need to do this for a migration answerfile. Any suggestions gratefully accepted

Mike

[Craig_Baltzer]

Unfortunately there is no support for pushing USB memory sticks into a Guest OS with ESX. An alternative would be to burn the contents of the memory stick to a CD/DVD ISO image and then connect the ISO image to the VM...

[mikevl]

Thanks

I thought this would be the answer. Appreciate your help

Mike v

[nick_couchman]

You can also use a USB-over-IP device - Digi has a popular one (USB 1.1 only) and I like the Silex SX2000-U2 (USB 2.0) device. The Silex device allows me to use USB memory sticks, USB hardware license keys, BlackBerry devices, and a few other USB devices inside my VMs with no problems.

[Craig_Baltzer]

Certainly a good solution once the OS is up and running, but unfortunately the ones I've used required an OS-specific device driver that prevent them from being useful for installations/migrations...

[nick_couchman]

Good point...

Does a migration answer file fit on a floppy? You could just create a floppy disk image in the datastore and put the file on there, then connect that to each VM...