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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

Cannot power on VMs in ESXi, Please HELP!

hey guys, my first post in the community.

im sorry in advance for my english, its ok but not great.

im studying to be vcp right now

and i want to set up a lab at home to practice, but for some reason i cannot power on any vms in my system.

ill start with my setup

my pc:

runs:

win10 pro

intel i5 8600k

32gb hyperx ram

z370 hd3p

my main disk is samsung 840 evo 250GB

and i have another hdd barracuda 2TB

i installed an ESXi host inside vmware workstation 14

gave him 16 gb of ram

4 procecores with 1 core each (total of 4 cores)

and around 300 gb of thin provision disk space(on the ssd)

the esxi run when i power it on, gave it a static ip and all

logged in through host client and whenever i creat a vm and try to power it on nothing happends, it get stuck on 0%

i dont know what to do, i read almost every KB outhere nothing helps..

i even formatted my computer and installed everything fresh..

let me know what screen shots you need to help me understand the problem

or what logs should i provide..thanks in advance guys! please help i dont want to fail this course just because i cannot run esxi at home Smiley Sad

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19 Replies
MohamadAlhousse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi talsofer

Please can you check if "virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-V/RVI" is checked on your nested ESXi VM inside VMware Workstation.

pastedImage_0.png

Hope this solves your problem,

Glad to be of service,

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you think your question have been answered correctly. Cheers, @vExpertConsult www.vexpertconsultancy.com VCIX-DCV 2018 | VCIX-NV 2019 | VCAP7-CMA Design | vSAN Specialist | vExpert ** | vExpert NSX | vExpert vSAN
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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

hey thanks for the quick reply, it is checked..same goes for my PC Bios..any other ideas?

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MohamadAlhousse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

You welcome dear,

Please let me know the versions of the below:

1. VMware Workstation

2. ESXi installed

3. OS of guest VM you are trying to power up

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you think your question have been answered correctly. Cheers, @vExpertConsult www.vexpertconsultancy.com VCIX-DCV 2018 | VCIX-NV 2019 | VCAP7-CMA Design | vSAN Specialist | vExpert ** | vExpert NSX | vExpert vSAN
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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

If possible -try to uninstall WS 14 and install WS 12.01 instead.
Also make sure to follow the instructions in Running Nested VMs


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

1.VMware workstation pro is:14.1.1

2.ESXi: 6.5u1

3.about the guest os..ive tried a few

ive tried windows 10 64bit and 32 bit

ive tried windows 7 64 bit

ive tried ubuntu 64 bit

tried windows server 2012r2

nothing works Smiley Sad

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

trying now, thanks for the reply..

will update soon

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MohamadAlhousse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi talsofer

Did you select "VMware ESXi 6.5 and later" as version when you installed ESXi as nested VM inside VMware workstation ?

pastedImage_0.png

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you think your question have been answered correctly. Cheers, @vExpertConsult www.vexpertconsultancy.com VCIX-DCV 2018 | VCIX-NV 2019 | VCAP7-CMA Design | vSAN Specialist | vExpert ** | vExpert NSX | vExpert vSAN
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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

yes, the workstation did it by itself..it identified the ISO file

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

still not working guys Smiley Sad

i tried everything you said..starting to lose hope:smileycry:

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MohamadAlhousse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can you send me screenshot of the error that appears ?

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you think your question have been answered correctly. Cheers, @vExpertConsult www.vexpertconsultancy.com VCIX-DCV 2018 | VCIX-NV 2019 | VCAP7-CMA Design | vSAN Specialist | vExpert ** | vExpert NSX | vExpert vSAN
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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

Can you please create a nested small DOS-VM and try to boot it into the BIOS.
It is important to know wether nested VMs are just very very slow or wether they do not work at all.
Did you check the nested VMs doc I linked above ?


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Please attach the ESXi VM's vmware.log to a reply post.

Are vmware.log files created for the nested VMs when you try to power them on? If so, please attach one of them too.

André

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

i attach a screen capture of the process me trying to power on the machine

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

here are attached the vmware.log

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

yes i did read your link..i'm attaching a video of me trying to power on the ms-dos

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

I can't see anything wrong in these host .log files.

Doesn't a vmware.log get created for the nested VMs?

André

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

attached the logs for the win7 vm

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

guys, anything? Smiley Sad

do i have a way to contact vmware support as a student?

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talsofer
Contributor
Contributor

Anyone?  

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