Why do I have such a hard time getting the CD/DVD ROM drive to work?!

[RunBMC]

OK, this shouldn't be THAT hard, but everytime we go to install an OS on a VM (ESX and ESXi), we can't get the darn CD/DVD ROM drive to work. We have a very simple setup:

HP Proliant ML350 G6 with a local CD/DVD ROM, local storage, running ESX 4.0.

Under properties of the CD/DVD Drive on the VM, we've tried all the settings. But shouldn't "Client Device" work? We've been into the BIOS of the VM, made sure the CD/DVD was first in the boot order, but whatever we try, no booting to CD. We've brought up the boot menu while booting the VM, connected to the 😧 drive and the E: drive and no luck. We finally had luck but it was by the "Connect to host device" method and then selecting "/dev/scdo". We were able to get the windows 2008 DVD to boot, but it wouldn't install. We found another post by someone that said that after boot, switch to an ISO, we did that and were able to install Windows Server 2008.

SO now, we have windows installed and still can ONLY get the CD/DVD (Exchange 2007) to be recognized by using the method above... however the Exchange setup has all kinds of goofy issues (images not showing up on splash screen, script errors when trying to click on the setup link....etc). So something is definitely not right. What the heck are we doing wrong?!?!?!

Thanks! Frustratingly yours,

-Bryan

[ProPenguin]

Hey, I am not sure on a fix but when ever I have had issues with a CD or DVD connecting and I couldnt get an ISO I would just convert the disk to an ISO, and use it that way. To convert it I would use a linux computer. Just put the disk in and run the command below. You may need to change some of the syntax. Sudo will not be required if you are root. "if" is defining the device

the disk is in, and the of is defining the ISO the command will

output. Again not a fix but hopefully this helps.

The command is:

sudo dd if=/dev/cdrom of=disk.iso

[RunBMC]

Thanks ProPengiun,

I just found this article which explains about an issue with the ML350 G6 DVD drives. Whew! This explains a lot. Will try a new SATA drive next week and will hopefully update this thread.

-Bryan

[RunBMC]

UPDATE: Switching out the SATA DVD drive in this type of server worked (sort've). I still couldn't get the drive to show up by using the "Connect to D:" or "Connect to E:". But when I tried the "Connect to host device" and selected the only option "/dev/scdo", the drive then behaved normally and I was able to install Exchange. Maybe that is the option that I'm supposed to use?

Anyway, hope this helps someone else out.