Major problems setting up guest OS

[htown1035]

Ok, I'm relatively new with VMWare and ESXI 3.5, but I've been working on this issue for hours with no answer. I hope someone can help me here.

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2900 with VMWare ESXi 3.5 loaded up without issue. I have created a new virtual machine without issue. But I can't get either a CD/DVD or ISO to boot to load the guest OS on the VM.

I have browsed these boards and the Internet, and I still cannot get this to work. Under the VM hardware options, I have tried to point the CDRom to the server CD Rom drive to boot, but it still goes to the PXE boot. I have told it to browse to the ISO files I have from MS and even renamed them and lowercased the .iso extension, still PXE boot and Operating System not found messages. I have gone into the BIOS and told it to boot from CDROM, still no luck.

I then tried to do what a lot of the forums said and copy the ISO over directly to the datastore on the server using WinSCP and Veeam FastSCP, and neither one works. It simply says Host refused or host not found. I have tried to telnet to the IP of the server on port 22 to see, and it can't connect as if it's not listening on that port.

The CDROM on the server is a SATA drive, but even the fixes for SATA CDROM's I've tried don't work.

Can anyone help me? This stuff is kinda critical at this point...

Jay

[mcowger]

Sounds like your ISO files are bad. Have you checksummed them after uploading?

have you uploaded them to the datastore using the datastore browser?

--Matt

[Troy_Clavell]

...so you are 100% sure this .iso is bootable? Can you burn it to a CD, and try to boot off of it from some other device like your laptop?

[vmroyale]

Welcome to the forums.

You can use the Virtual Infrastructure Client to upload the ISO to a datastore. You may or may not want to leave it there, but it will be good enough to get your install going on the VM. Using SCP is going to take a few tweaks of ESXi.

Good Luck!

[htown1035]

vmroyale,

I am using the Virtual Infrastructure Client, but I haven't found where uploading files to the datastore is located. I've looked everywhere but I must be missing it.

Troy,

I have burned these copies to CD and have been able to boot to them successfully.

mcowger,

I didn't checksum them because they booted successfully on CD. Where is this datastore browser located?

Jay

[vmroyale]

Go to the summary tab for your ESX host. In the Resources section, find Datastores. Right-click on the actual datastore that you want to upload the ISO to, and then choose "Browse Datastore". Upload is the 4th button from the left on the toolbar.

[htown1035]

Ok, I successfully copied over the ISO file I want to boot over to the datastore, then changed the hardware settings for the CD/DVD to the Datastore ISO file and to connect when turned on. Then chose to boot to CDROM in the boot settings of VMWare. Still goes straight to PXE boot and Operating system not found.

[NTurnbull]

Hi, when you start the VM you will see the VMware BIOS, press F2 to enter the VM BIOS and set the boot order. Sorry, pressed submit too quick.. When you check the VM settings setting the ISO as the CD-ROM make sure the tick mark is in the connected at power on box,

[htown1035]

Hey there,

Unfortunately, I did set it in the BIOS to boot to CDROM first and then made sure the Connect when powered on was clicked. It just seems to ignore it and goes straight to PXE boot even though it's at the bottom of the boot order.

[SimonLong]

Hi Jay, have you tried pressing ESC on the VMWare spash screen? This should bring up a boot menu where you can select which device you want to boot from.

Simon

[htown1035]

Yeah, I see the splash screen and get the options, but even when I choose to boot from the CDROM it's like it ignores it totally and goes straight to PXE.