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ala139
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Reverting back to HDD to boot ESXi

I am new to vmware and am currently using vSphere 5 (Free).

After reading up on the ability of booting our HP DL380 booting off a USB stick, I decided to try it, and was successful. However, I am uncertain if this is really "best practice," as I have read there is some pros and cons to this method.

I have read posts that describe how to replicate my stick in case it goes dead, but my question is, can I revert back to placing ESXi back on the HDD, and how would I go about it?

Thanks in advance.

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jamesbowling
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Yes as your datastore(s) that your VM(s) live on should be on either a local or shared disk array to begin with.

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!

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Troy_Clavell
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thread moved from the Virtual Machine & Guest OS Community to the VMware vSphere Hypervisor Community

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jamesbowling
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All you need to do is reinstall.  Remove the USB stick and reinstall it.

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!
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ala139
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I apologize for not being more clear, but I was asking in the context if I had a vm or two already installed/configured already on the host, and then I decided to abandon the USB boot and revert back to HDD. Does your instructions still apply in this circumstance, or is there another method I need to go through?

Thanks.

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jamesbowling
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Yes as your datastore(s) that your VM(s) live on should be on either a local or shared disk array to begin with.

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!
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ala139
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Forgive me if my response sounds like I just discovered they invented "sliced bread" but.... WOW! If that's the case, this virtualization is really great.

And yes, my datastore is on a seperate array on the same machine as my test vm.

Thanks for clarifying.

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jamesbowling
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No worries.  Please let us know if there is anything else we can help you with.  There are a ton of us here in the community who are willing to help.

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!
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