ESXi 3.5 Update 2 on a USB memory key

Posted by Duncan Epping in July 29th, 2008
Published in Server

For those like me who would like to check ESXi 3.5 update 2 but don’t want to install on a local harddisk. Here’s a good pdf about how to install it on a USB memory key. It’s fairly easy and I just booted my IBM X61 laptop with ESXi.


In short:

  1. First get the following tools: 7-Zip(Free), WinImage(Demo)
  2. Download the ESXi ISO
  3. Open the ISO with 7-Zip
  4. Extract “install.tgz”
  5. Open “install.tgz” with 7-Zip
  6. Click on “install.tar”
  7. Browse to “usr\lib\vmware\installer\”
  8. Open “VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_2-103909.i386.dd.bz2″
  9. Extract “VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_2-103909.i386.dd”
  10. Open WinImage and go to Disk, click on “Restore Virtual Harddisk Image on physical drive”
  11. Select a physical drive
  12. Select “VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_2-103909.i386.dd”
  13. And click “yes” to write the DD image to the USB Disk

Done! For a more detailed procedure check the pdf above, it also includes screenshots!


« High Availability change
Cool feature of the VMware Converter plugin »

38 user comments or pingbacks in this post

Follow-up this post comment rss or leave a trackback
1. Bert Bouwhuis said,
July 29th, 2008 at 21:28

That’s an interesting option, but the PDF link is either wrong or not available at the moment…

2. Gabriel Maciel said,
July 29th, 2008 at 21:34

The following link “http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/Knorrhane/2008/01/21/installing-esx-3i-on-usb-stick” has the setup details as well.

3. Duncan Epping said,
July 29th, 2008 at 22:11

the website is down Bert, the link should be correct cause I double checked it this afternoon.

4. Anders Gregersen said,
August 10th, 2008 at 19:13

Did ESXi see your local storage and nic on the X61? If so what partno. does the X61 you use have? I’m looking for a laptop that works with ESXi 3.5u2 without any nfs or other storage attached

5. Martti Kuparinen said,
August 25th, 2008 at 12:16

Here’s how I did it using Ubuntu (as I don’t have Windows on my home PC):

http://www.iki.fi/kuparine/comp/vmware/esxionusb.html

6. Brian said,
August 25th, 2008 at 21:30

For those looking for a WinImage alternative I successfully used “DD for Windows” found here: http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

I used:

dd bs=1M if=VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd of=\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0 –progress

I found the path to my removable drive by using the “dd –list” command and then looking in the “NT Block Device Objects” list for the first removable media where the size was the same as my USB flash drive.

Not as sleek as WinImage, but since this is GPL and the only time I expect to ever write a DD image file to a drive, it is much easier than registering yet another piece of software.

7. Remon Lam said,
August 26th, 2008 at 13:27

I have moved the guide to my new site http://www.vminfo.nl/?p=29
sorry for the inconvenience.

I have updated the guide for ESX version 3.5 u2.

Best regards,
Remon Lam – VMinfo.nl

8. Remon Lam said,
August 27th, 2008 at 00:39

I’ve seen that you’re using an “old” link to the guide.
I have moved it to my new site that is dedicated to virtualization.

On the site below you can find the new version of the guide, I have tested it with the latest version of ESX 3i Update 2 and it’s still working fine.

Here’s the direct link to the guide: http://www.vminfo.nl/?p=29

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Best regards,
Remon Lam – VMinfo.nl

9. PSL said,
August 30th, 2008 at 14:52

I cannot boot the USB flashdisk (2GB), I get error “Panic: Cannot get disk parameters.”
Motherboard is miniATX Gigabyte with G33 chipset (GA-G33M-DSR2. Looks as SYSLINUX problem.

10. Marcello said,
September 7th, 2008 at 03:22

I got the same error “Panic: Cannot get disk parameters” using GA-EP35-DS3P

11. Chris Staudt said,
October 15th, 2008 at 17:34

All I get is:
Panic: Cannot get disk parameters.
Did anybody solve this?

Best regards,
chris

12. Microkid said,
December 11th, 2008 at 19:40

Booting ESXi from a Gigabyte mobo seems to be problematic, I read this at more forums. Seems the Gigabyte mobo doesn’t emulate the USB stick as an HDD or so.

13. jrobgood said,
December 12th, 2008 at 02:37

I’ve seen about 500 iterations of the “how to boot ESXi from USB”, but is there a solution for booting ESXi but defining an internal SATA as the installation target?

I wonder if there’s a way to edit the boot sector of the DDed USB stick and trick the installer into thinking it’s a CD-ROM device and thus seek an appropriate target on the host?

14. smino said,
December 12th, 2008 at 07:00

Wow, that boots fast! It worked for me.
Know I need to figure out how to create images in it. I am guessing I need the VM Infrastructure client right?

15. smino said,
December 12th, 2008 at 07:00

Will ESXi run on any hardware?

17. smino said,
December 17th, 2008 at 16:53

How do you configure the static ip and netowrk device to come up at every boot properly configured. I find I have to set the IP and network card every boot.

Also, does it support networking teaming and 9000 MTU?

18. Blackz06vette said,
January 14th, 2009 at 04:46

Had a minor issue with Winimage (failed to write to usb stick with Vista Ultimate 64 bit), but that worked fine (same USB stick) under XP pro 32 bit.

Running nicely on an EVGA 680i motherboard, sees the NIC’s.

19. MikeinBrighton said,
January 23rd, 2009 at 16:40

Re the Gigabyte USB boot problems. I was having the same on a GA-MA790GP-DS4H.

What solved it for me was image backup via Acronis Trueimage Workstation, then writing back to USB. Worked like a charm!

20. Tor Håkon Haugen said,
February 22nd, 2009 at 13:44

Thanks for a great guide.

I used this in combination with some other information on the Internet to add support for more hardware.

My own guide, pluss references to all the other web sites I used, can be found here: http://blog.torh.net/2009/02/22/running-vmware-esxi-hypervisor/

21. Wally Simmonds said,
February 28th, 2009 at 02:13

@MikeinBrighton

How’d you get that to work? Trying to do a image backup of the USB key, but I get errors.

22. Stefaan said,
March 12th, 2009 at 14:25

If you use Windows Vista then winimage will not work. try using diskimg (http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=12 )

or other disk image tool.

23. Eric said,
March 20th, 2009 at 21:17

I followed these instructions as well as the ones at http://vmetc.com/2008/02/05/create-your-own-bootable-esx-3i-usb-stick/ for 3.5i U3 and booting fails with:

PANIC: Error while reading file: -3, vmkernel.gz

Has anyone made this work with U3?

24. trying_esxi said,
March 27th, 2009 at 20:57

Yes. Worked for me on U3.

General question – is the general idea of installing on USB memory drive for people to just try it, then install ‘for real’ on a drive or something? I ask because I know flash drives have limited read/write life cycles so how long will it run on a USB key before that’s a concern? I guess if it’s more than a few years then who cares, right?

I used a 2.0 GB stick BTW…

Thanks.

25. Duncan Epping said,
March 27th, 2009 at 21:47

I use it primarily for testing. I know people who use it at home for running ESXi on PC’s without a supported hdd controller.

26. Ewan said,
March 31st, 2009 at 11:46

I use it for testing on a home server, but a few of the blades out there come with what is essentially a USB stick inside the server with ESXi pre-installed.

There’s very little disk writing going on (just config files really), so it should in theory be incredibly reliable.

Ewan

27. sabnext said,
April 7th, 2009 at 08:02

I’ve made One-Size-Fits-All USB Multi-boot Flash Drive
using nice instruction http://realwindfall.blogspot.com/2009/04/one-size-fits-all-usb-multi-boot-flash.html.

Now I have:

- Mini-Xp from Hiren’s boot CD
- Knoppix
- Puppy Linux
- DOS (Yes!)

on my OCZ Raly 2 USB flash drive (32 Gb).

28. jpmoney said,
May 16th, 2009 at 13:01

“quote” 19. MikeinBrighton said,
January 23rd, 2009 at 16:40

Re the Gigabyte USB boot problems. I was having the same on a GA-MA790GP-DS4H.

What solved it for me was image backup via Acronis Trueimage Workstation, then writing back to USB. Worked like a charm!
“quote”

image back-up from what? From the USB itself or a working SATA with ESXi already on it?
I get the same error Gigabyte P35DS3-R

29. jpmoney said,
May 16th, 2009 at 13:03

I guess all people with Gigabye mobo’s are getting this error: Panic: Cannot get disk parameters.

30. Lorenz said,
May 17th, 2009 at 11:03

image back-up from what? From the USB itself or a working SATA with ESXi already on it?

has anyone got an answer to this question
I am also getting panic message when I try and boot from USB key created following above instructions.

Leave A Reply Below

Currently browsing ESXi 3.5 Update 2 on a USB memory key

 Username (*required)

 Email Address (*private)

 Website (*optional)

Pingback and trackback

Link trail from various blogs:
RSC Wales Technical Blog
Pingback on October 3rd, 2008 at 12:26
Web Sites of Interest » links for 2008-11-08
Pingback on November 9th, 2008 at 06:01
Pierow’s Prattle » VMWare ESXi and USB Thumb Drives
Pingback on March 20th, 2009 at 18:24
Wesley Levels’s Blog » build your own ESXi whitebox
Pingback on May 10th, 2009 at 00:13

Topics Search

Yellow-Bricks recommends:







VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation: Support Yellow-Bricks and get a 10% discount on select VMware products.

Train Signal:
Learn Virtualization technology with Train Signal. Support us and learn how to fully utilize VMware products at the same time! Click here for more info!

Advertisements

Recent Comments

Tags

Info