What would I need to do to, to make this process as easy as I ca, as seamless as I can?
i have 4 hard drive, maybe you guys can advise me how to do this without losing any data.
C - HOST OSWINDOWS XP PRO 64BIT, ONE GUEST OS is stored on here
D - empty 1TB drive - will use for file transfering of data needed from the HOST OS. If I have to wipe the C drive.
E - 1 guest OS - 1TB drive
F - 1 guest OS - 1TB drive
If you are trying to run ESXi on the machine you have the Workstation running on I would first make sure you can run ESXi on that machine. If it isn't on the HCL then your first struggle will be to figure out how to make it run. You could try installing ESXi to a USB flash drive as a test. Disconnect all drives to prevent ESXi writing to them.
Good idea. How fast would ESXi run on a flash drive? I don't mind letting it keep one if it's quick.
Is there a way to migrate everything over to ESX, or would I have to move all of the guest OS's to another machine and plop in a Physical to Virtual ISO/CD on the guest OS's on another machine running VMWare Workstation and import them to the ESXi server?
I am doing this, because I figure ESXi has better performance then XP PRO -> GUEST OS does.
ESXi is designed to be installed to flash. It runs in RAM so loading is the only "fast" issue. You may be able to switch back and forth between WS and ESXi and do some fancy swap but ?? You would need to work through that.
If I popped in a flash drive, and unplugged all of my hard drives, would it be possible to locate the drives after ESXi is installed, and then start pulling from those drives? Or not at all? I'd need to do that externally?
ESX(i) uses it's own disk format. It does not support FAT or NTFS. Attach the drives to the machine you will use to manage the ESXi machine from and migrate them to the ESXi machine using the VMware Converter tool. Add the drives back to the ESXi server as you clean them off.
Is that safe? Should I do that with data that I NEED on it?
You said you had an empty drive. If the storage controller is recognized and ESXi can use it as a datastore then that is the place to start moving the virtual machines to. Once you verify that ESXI can boot, see al your hardware and can create a datastore connect up the Windows drives. You will need to do something to move the VM that is located on the drive the Windows OS is installed on. Do that first and move it to one of the other disks that already have VMs. Next remove the drives, other than the one that ESXi is using for the datastore, and connect them to the machine you will be using as a management workstation. You shoud now be able to start moving the VMs to your ESXi server. When you have all the VMs from one drive copied and verified on the ESXi machine you can add it into the ESXi machine as a datastore.
