Installing Windows 2000/2003 guest os on ESX server 3.5

[maulanar]

Hi Community, I've got a problem that I've been struggling with for close to month now. I have a VI setup with 2 ESX 3.5 Update 1 servers managed by a VC 2.5 server. I've updated one of the servers using update manager so it's up to date. I can not complete the installation of a Windows 2000/2003 server guest OS. The Windows 2000 guest gets stuck on the "Setup is starting Windows" screen and the processor usage jumps to over 90%. The Windows 2003 guest does all the initial sexy bits until the first reboot then it comes back with a "disk read error" or "xx file is missing or corrupt". This happens on both the ESX hosts. I can complete the installation of a Windows XP guest without issue. I can fire up a VM imported from VMware Server (using the converter) no problems. I can even re-install Windows 200X server to an imported VM.

As far as I can tell there seems to be some issue with new disks and I can't get a handle on the problem. So as it stands right now to create new VM i have to do it on VMware server then import! Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

[kumarkv]

Hey

Check the following:

1. Is the patch level same for bot the ESX Servers? If not bring it to the equal patch levels

2. Does the VM reside on a local disks or a centralized storage?

3. Are there other VM's running in the same datastore?

4. Have you tried installing the OS from iso image rather than a CD?

5. Any other error message during installation or VM creation steps?

Thx

Kumar

[maulanar]

1. The boxes are not at same patch levels. I'm downloading Update 2 iso for ESX and will update them later on.

2. VM resides on local storage (both hosts)

3. Yes there are VMs running in both datastores (Windows 2000 server on one, and Windows 2003 on the other, both imported)

4. Tried with ISO and actual CD, no go.

5. No error messages reported during VM creation.

[maulanar]

Update. I've updated both servers using downloaded esx3.5u2 iso. Unfortunately my problem still persists. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Your post has been moved to the VI: Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum

Dave Mishchenko

VMware Communities User Moderator