Have you ever wanted to install ESXi on a host that doesn’t have a CD-ROM drive? Maybe you also don’t have a TFTP server, so installing over the network isn’t an option either. I came across this situation at a customer site recently.
It turns out the easiest solution in this situation is to convert a USB thumb drive into a bootable installation key. VMware’s online documentation describes how to do this. The thing is, the instructions I could find were for using a Linux system to create the key and my work-issued laptop runs Windows.
It turns out you can use your Windows system to create the installation media, and it’s pretty easy. This post will walk you through the process.
To do this, you’ll need four things:
Download the vSphere ISO matching the version you want to install. Keep note of where you save it.
Download and install the Linux Live USB Creator. It will show up on your Start Menu as “LiLi USB Creator”.
Plug the thumb drive you want to use into your laptop’s USB port. If there’s any data on it that you want to keep, save a copy now. During the process, you’ll be reformatting the drive.
Run the Windows Command Prompt utility. (Click on Start, and type “cmd” in the search box. Select “cmd.exe” when it shows up.) In the window that pops up, type the following command:
diskpart
In the new window that pops up, type the following command:
list disk
In the diskpart utility, type the following command:
select disk <number of your USB drive>
For example, the drive I’m using is highlighted in the explorer view below. As you can see, it’s a 1GB drive (Windows sees 961MB):
select disk 1
clean create partition primary active
format fs=fat32
If, however, you’re already at the customer site and need to do the install right now, type the following command in diskpart:
format fs=fat32 quick
assign exit
Start the LiLi USB Creator utility. It will look something like this:
In Step 2, choose the image you want to install on the USB drive. If you downloaded an ISO image, click on “ISO / IMG / ZIP” and browse to the location of the image, then select it. If you want to make a bootable USB key from an install CD, click on “CD”.
Step 3 will take care of itself. Wait for it to say “Install only (no Live)”.
In Step 4, make sure all the checkboxes are unselected.
When you’ve completed these steps, LiLi will look like this:
Exit the webpage, exit LiLi, and eject your USB drive.
Enter the BIOS configuration utility on your host. Look for options for boot order. Make sure USB devices are earlier than any internal storage on the host. It may be that way by default, or you may need to edit.
Insert the USB key in the host’s USB port. Save your changes to the BIOS, and reboot your host. The host will boot off of the image on the USB drive, and start up the install scripts.
Interested in automating your installs and configurations? Ivo Beerens has a great blog post here that describes not only creating the USB key, but also how to create a Kickstart configuration file to have a scripted install automatically configure the ESXi installation options for you.