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PerryWhittle
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

cant boot an ISo to install guest operating system

i am trying to boot an ISo on my pc to install the guest OS. CD is set as client device. Connected and connect at power on are both greyed out. I dont get the option to connect to the ISO until i power on the VM. I have tried changing the boot order in the bios but doesnt make any difference. The VM just tries a PXE boot then fails. Anybody else seen this before?

If so how did you solve it. BTW i used Nero to create the ISO of the OS

Regards

Pez

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Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

YOu can place your ISO in the /vmimages directory on your ESX server and then use a 'local ISO' image to do the install instead of using the Client Device which needs the VM to be booted in some fashion before it can be used. It is really a timing issue more than anything. I use this method.

Depending on the order of the boot options you can force it to go to cdrom. I would make my order: Boot from Disk, Boot from PXEboot, Boot from CDROM in this case. Then get the client device working while the PXEboot is timing out and then install.

Best regards,

Edward

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
PerryWhittle
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

so just copy the ISO images to the vmiimages folder on the ESX host?

whats the best way to transfer them?

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Texiwill
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Hello,

Use some form of SCP... WinSCP, Putty (pscp), etc.

I would transfer them to an administrative user (if you do not have direct SSH to root access, the default) that may have write access to /vmimages or if not, login and use SUDO to move the files to /vmimages.

SUDO works the best from a security perspective.

Best regards,

Edward

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
trojanjo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

putting the iso on the ESX host is faster but if you don't want to deal with scp and logging in as root you can :

Power on the VM and hit ESC while the BIOS is loading, this will put you in the boot menu, before hitting CDROM mount your ISO from the VC button, then back in the console hit the option to boot from CDROM.

---- Visit my blog. http://www.2vcps.com
Follow me: http://twitter.com/jon_2vcps
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PerryWhittle
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

trojanjo,

thanks for the tip, i have actually tried doing that but it still wont boot the ISO.

Texiwill,

i loaded the ISO to the esx server under /vmimages and can see the file and assign it to the VM cd drive, but it keeps on trying a damn network boot.

I'm starting to think it could be the ISo thats the problem. I created it with Nero, is that normally a problem?

Regards

Pez

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PerryWhittle
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i've managed to boot from the cd directly in the ESX servers cd drive, i'll go with that for now and re visit the ISO issue later. Thanks all

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PerryWhittle
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boot from cd drive

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trojanjo
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I create all my ISO's with Nero, never been a problem. Maybe get some kind of ISO explorer to verifty what you think is in the CD image is actually there.

---- Visit my blog. http://www.2vcps.com
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PerryWhittle
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Update.

used an iso image from my MSDN discs and VM boots them no problem. The problem was my ISO image

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TCronin
Expert
Expert

We've had issues with diffrent bootable CD's either creating them or making iso using both Nero and Roxio. Usually one will work and the other will make an unbootable version of the same disc. It's always hit or miss on what ones will fail.

I pretty consistently use ISOrecorder from here: http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm

So far none of my iso's created with this have had a problem, and it's free.

Tom Cronin, VCP, VMware vExpert 2009 - 2021, Co-Leader Buffalo, NY VMUG
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green27614
Contributor
Contributor

Has anyone found a cure for this?? I have tried this three different ways with no success on any count..

1. Tried running upgrade from OS- fails to copy NTLDR - using ISO image or CD in host both fail

2. copying files to VM hard drive and running upgrade from there- still fails....

3. Booting to CD ... still fails using either ISO or physical CD

I need a solution to this too....Thanks!

Eddie

Eddie
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JamesWHS
Contributor
Contributor

Well, Im bringing this thread back, I am having the same issues.. Ill bring you up to speed

Installed win 7 -> Installed VMware Server--> Went to install Windows Home server, Booted sucessfully, Didnt have floppy driver --> Went and got it, re tried --> did it wrong --> tried again after mounting floppy, and started getting the NTDLR error, have tried booting directly to iso, 2 different copies of WHS, still same problem, I did creat a new virtual machine after removing the previous before each attempt. Still happening. Only thing I can think of is possible a reboot of host os is necessary or temp files could be screwing it up. Im also downloading a fresh image from microsoft right now..

Any help would be appreciated !

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

very often obscure ntldr problems are the result of the VM booting of an unformatted floppy-image - don't do that ...

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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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hronstve
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Pez,

I was just about to ask if you already solve, because I am now experiencing this kind of problem.Everytime I'm going to install a guest OS,the ISo always fails and can't boot.I'm doing the right thing base on the procedure,but I always fails.

Is there anything I need to do about it?Any help will do.

Thanks!

Best Regards - - stve

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