ESX 3.0 in Workstation 6 - VM "setup did not find any hard drives installed"

[mikelane]

I have ESX 3.0 running as a VM is workstation 6.x.

I set up a new VM in ESX for XP Pro and have tried installing from several .iso images.

I did see a thread saying that XP needed to be a full version and not OEM for the LSI (scsi) drivers and this is what I believe I am using.

Each time i get to the point in the XP Pro setup where i would normally select / format the hard drive i get the following error "setup did not find any hard drives installed".

My desktop does not have a floppy drive so I am not in a position to be able to hit F6 to load scsi drivers.

Is the problem my version of XP Pro or could there be some other issue?

I would like to get a small VM installed just to demo VMotion.

Many thanks.

[Dave_Mishchenko · Accepted solution]

The Windows XP cd does not have the necessary SCSI drivers to install in an ESX VM. You'll need to add the SCSI drivers from a floppy disk (or floppy disk image) during the XP install process. See the below link for more details. You should be able to download a floppy image from one of the links below. You'll then need to copy that to the ESX host, and attach the floppy image to the A drive in the VM. When you then install XP, press F6 and you'll be able to add the drivers from the virtual floppy.

http://pubs.vmware.com/guestnotes/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=GOS_Install&file=gue...

http://www.matrixtek.com/resources/tools/LSI_WinXP_1.20.18.zip

Pasted from <http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=84990&messageID=647189>

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=84832&messageID=646121#646121

[mikelane]

Thanks for the reply - the drivers got me installing XP (although my installation froze later).

I am starting over with ESX 3.0.2 now following the xtravirt guides and will be using OpenFiler for VMFS.

I fully anticipate this to work there too.

Thanks again, your help is very much appreciated!