Knowledge Base

Installing ESXi 4.x on a USB or SD flash card

1. Acquire and create an installation CD-ROM by downloading the appropriate image from the download section of the VMware website for vSphere and burn the ISO file onto CD media.
2. Insert the ESXi 4.x Installable CD into the CD-ROM drive.
3. Set the BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM device.
   
   Press the key required to activate your machine's BIOS setup. This key is often a function key or Delete. For more information, consult your hardware vendor documentation.
   
   
4. On the Welcome screen, press Enter to continue with the installation.
5. Read the VMware end-user license agreement and accept it by pressing F11.
6. In the Select a Disk screen, select the disk drive you want to install ESXi 4.x on and press Enter. This screenshot illustrates how a Flash Reader appears on the Select a Disk screen.
   
    
   
   Note: If you are installing to an SD flash card or USB drive, the local disks are not affected.
   
   
7. Press F11 to start the installation.
8. When the installation is complete, remove the installation CD.
9. Press Enter to reboot the host.
10. Set the first boot device to be the drive on which you installed ESXi in step 6.
    
    To set the boot device, press the key required to enter your machine's BIOS setup. This key is often a function key or Delete. For more information, consult your hardware vendor
    documentation.
    
    

Disaster Recovery

1. Connect to the ESXi host using the vSphere Client, or add the ESXi host to an existing vCenter Server implementation.
2. Click on the host.
3. Click the Configuration tab.
4. Click Storage.
5. Click Rescan to ensure you can see all datastores.
6. Browse the datastore and register any virtual machines that are located on the datastores. For more information, see Registering or adding a virtual machine to the inventory (1006160).