Booting a client from a USB

[Mad_IP]

Hello all. I'm in a pickle with two of my clients. Here's what I'm running:

vSphere client V5.5.0

VMware vCenter Server v5.5.0

Clients are all running Win 7

Something happened to these two clients and they fell off the domain controller. I have 6 total clients and these are the only two that no one knows the local admin log in. I'm unable to put these two back on the domain. 

If this were a physical machine, I boot from a USB and reset all the account passwords. So how would I go about booting a virtual client to a virtual USB?

Any suggestions are help would be great.

[fabio1975]

Ciao 

ESXi/ESX 4.1, ESXi 5.x and ESXi 6.x support USB device passthrough from an ESXi/ESX host to a virtual machine.

Check this KB 

USB support in ESXi/ESX 4.1, ESXi 5.x, and ESXi 6.x (1022290) (vmware.com)

or this link

Boot ESXi Virtual Machine From Passthrough USB - Virtualization Howto

[Mad_IP]

Thank you, I'll take a look!

[scott28tt]

One other suggestion would be to upgrade/migrate to at least 6.5 since support for 5.5 ended more than 3 years ago: https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2018/09/just-two-weeks-left-before-vsphere-5-5-reaches-end-of-gener...

[Mad_IP]

Yeah, this version I'm working on is terribly outdated. I'm working with a customer with the mindset of, "It's not a problem until it becomes a problem". Appreciate the link, I'll take a look.