Paravirtual SCSI floppy images for 4.0U1?

[DSeaman]

In the release notes for 4.0 U1 it says the Paravirtual SCSI adaptor can now be used for the boot drive. During the Windows OS installation you can press F6 and point it to the /vmimages/floppies directory for the needed drivers. The problem is with my ESXi 4.0 U1 host, I can locate the vmimages directory but there's nothing in there. So where are these mysterious paravirtual floppy images for Windows 2003/2008?

[AndreTheGiant]

You can use the pvscsi-1.0.0.5-signed-Windows200X.flp image.

But on ESXi installation there isn't.

So just take from a full ESX installation.

Or try (but I not sure that it can work) with /store/packages/4.0.0/floppies/vmscsi-1.2.1.0-signed.flp

Andre

[Svedja]

What do you mean. Is the package in the ESX4 installation?

I looked in the ESX4 U1 ISO, but cant find it.

Vmware realy should provide a link to download it. The documentation is ambigiuos regarding where to find it.

[Svedja]

I will reply to myself in this case as I find it interesting to actualy find the .flp images on our test ESXi installation.

you will find them in the following path.

/vmfs/volumes/Hypervisor3/packages/4.0.0/floppies

1. ls -l

-rwx------ 1 root root 1474560 Nov 24 10:52 pvscsi-1.0.0.5-signed-Windows2003.flp

-rwx------ 1 root root 1474560 Nov 24 10:52 pvscsi-1.0.0.5-signed-Windows2008.flp

-rwx------ 1 root root 1474560 Nov 24 10:52 vmscsi-1.2.1.0-signed.flp

(or shorter, simpler path is actualy /vmimages/floppies as stated in the documentation)

The problem is that you can't mount these images for some reason.

You can see a "vmimages" path when you try to mount a floppy to the virtual machine thru vCenter "Connect to floppy image on Datastore", but the folder doesn't show any files and looks empty.

So i thought if I access the ESX directly, I will be able to mount the images, but then I wasn't able to choose any "vmimages" path at all when choosing "Connect to floppy image on Datastore".

As a workaround I will copy the images to a normal share we use for storing installation ISO-images.

Hope that helps. (read: gimme a star for the solution :smileycool: )

Ps. haven't tested if the images works, but I can't imagine anything else.

Message was edited by: Svedja

[DSeaman]

But on an ESXi installation, how do you get to the floppy path? The datastore browser doesn't go 'up' beyond the user defined datastores.

[Svedja · Accepted solution]

As I said in previous post, for some reason you only see the vmimages folder "path" in the databrowser when you manage the virtual machine thru vCenter.

If you access the ESXi installation directly, you will not see the vmimages folder (unknown reason why)

If you want to extract the .flp files from you ESXi installation, you will have to enable the SSH console interface (see: http://professionalvmware.com/2009/05/unsupported-console-and-ssh-on-esxi-4/ ) and then use the bultin SCP command or software like WinSCP to extract the files.

From there you can put the .flp files wherever it fits you.

[DSeaman]

Gotcha, didn't realize you had to go into unsupported mode. I found the images. Thanks!

[niepio]

all images *.flp are on ISO version full ESX (not ESXi):

ISO\VMware\RPMS\vmware-esx-tools-4.xxxxxxxxxxx.rpm

extract from this file *.cpio.gz file, from this file *.cpio file (ex. by 7zip) next over . folder got vimages folder within floppies

If you want to boot win installer using F6 key you must prepare this .flp file (ex. Winimage) copy driver files into created i386 folder on this floppy.