How to Install VMWare ESX Server from a USB flash drive
Like many of you (I am guessing) I have an old PC and at least 5 hard disks lying around which I thought I’ll put in good use. So I decided to make a NAS server. And I thought the PC I’ve got isn’t that bad (dual core, 3GB ram, etc. etc.) so why not make it so that I can run another OS if I want. So there came the idea of using VMWare. Now, while installing I realised it’d be better if I could run it from an USB drive. So I Google’d it like you and found this step by step tutorial which I thought I’ll publish here. Thanks to Paul at VMWare community for sharing these information first. So here it, installing VMWare ESX from a USB Flash Drive.
Requirements:
- You will need at least a 1 GB USB flash disk.
- You must have both the ESX 3.x CD-ROM and ISO image handy.
- You will need an ISO image extraction tool such as WinISO, MagicISO, or even WinRAR.
- You’ll need SYSLINUX, a Linux boot loader for removable media. Get it here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.36.zip
- These instructions are based on a Windows PC for simplicity. If you’re a Linux guru, then you can obviously do this under Linux. You’d need to know how to mount .ISO images in order to extract files, etc.
Steps:
- Plug in your USB flash disk and format it under Windows. Use the FAT filesystem (not FAT32, although it would probably work).
- From Windows Explorer, find the boot.iso file in the /images directory on the ESX 3.x CD-ROM. Copy boot.iso into a temporary directory on your hard drive.
- Using your ISO extraction program of choice, extract the contents of the boot.iso file to your USB flash drive. On my PC, it’s the E: drive.
- Delete the isolinux.bin and updatecd.cfg files from the USB flash disk.
- Rename the isolinux.cfg file on the USB flash disk to syslinux.cfg
- Using WordPad (not Notepad), open the syslinux.cfg file and add the keyword usb to the end of every line that begins with append. Here’s what the file should look like when you’re done:
- Now, extract the syslinux .zip file into another temporary directory on your hard drive.
- Open up a command prompt and use the cd command to navigate into the win32 directory. For example: cd C:\temp\syslinux-3.36\win32
- Now, run the syslinux program to apply the boot loader and boot sector to the USB flash drive: syslinux -s e: ( On my PC, my USB flash drive is mounted as drive E: )
- Finally, copy the ESX 3.x ISO image onto the flash drive: copy c:\iso\esx-3.0.1-32039.iso e:\
- Confirm that your USB flash drive contains the following files: boot.cat boot.msg initrd.img snake.msg splash.lss vmlinuz syslinux.cfg esx-3.0.1-32039.iso
- You’re all set! Unplug the USB flash drive, configure the BIOS on your server to boot from USB accordingly, and boot ‘er up!
- The ESX installer will detect the USB device and whatever SCSI / disk controllers you have. When the installer asks you what the installation source will be, choose Hard Disk.
- You will need to choose the right disk device (ie. /dev/sda, /dev/sdb) that corresponds to your USB flash disk. Chances are it will be /dev/sdb.
- Finally, the installer will ask you what directory to find the ESX installation CD image in. Just use / and it will find the .ISO image for you.
- The rest is history!
default esx prompt 1 timeout 600 display boot.msg F1 boot.msg F7 snake.msg label debug kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img noapic nomediacheck debug usb label esx kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img usb label text kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img text usb label expert kernel vmlinuz append expert initrd=initrd.img usb label ks kernel vmlinuz append ks initrd=initrd.img usb label lowres kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lowres usb
You can follow the forum posts here if you come across any problems or leave your comments and I’ll try and help you ASAP.
New Site Launch: eBody Shop Australia Vitamin Store
Just launched a new eCommerce site for a client and thought of sharing with you all. It’s a vitamin and minerals online store that has a huge range of products. Here’s the press release:
eBody Shop is Australia’s leading online store for vitamin and natural health supplements products. eBody Shop sells products from the highly reputed brands in Australia and from around the world and sells them at an unbeatable lower price. In fact, eBody Shop guarantees you the lowest price on the market.
You’ll save up to 60% off Recommended Retail Price when you buy any vitamin and mineral products and supplements from eBodyshop. And if you happen to find a lower price anywhere else then you get another 5% price beat. Now, that’s a bargain!
The products range from general well being to detox diet to weight loss and many more including Mood Manager & Cholesterol Manager. You’ll also find general health related products for Men, Women, Kids and Pets. So, browse the store now and find the right products for you.
Here’s a list of product range:
- Men’s Health
- Women’s Health
- Kids’ Health
- Weight Management
- Joint & Muscle Care
- Skin & Beauty Care
- Ageing Well
- Sexual Health
- Sports Nutrition
- Detox Diets
- Vitamins & Minerals
- Body Building
- Snoring Treatment
- Hair Care
- Pet Care
eBody Shop not only guarantees the lowest price on the market, but also guarantees customer Satisfaction! You’re bound to be satisfied with their products and most importantly, their customer service. And that’s a promise from eBody Shop Australia.
Google PageRank (PR) 10 Websites
If you’re a webmaster then I can guarantee that the first thing you look at when you go to any and I mean any website is the PageRank of that website. Why? For those who aren’t familiar with PageRank then read the following articles:
Anyway, just today I was wondering how many websites are there with PageRank 10 (out of 10) as of Google’s last PageRank update. To my surprise I’ve found only 3. A few of the PageRank 10 websites like Adobe have lost their PageRank 10 position. Here’re the 3 sites with PageRank 10:
- http://www.usa.gov/
- http://www.google.com/
- http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why is Google PageRank (PR) Important?
I am sure you know what Google PageRank is and exactly how it works. But if you think you need to quickly refresh your memory then please check out “What is Google PageRank or PR?“.
There’s so much talk about PageRank not being as important as it used to be. Well, I too agree to it to a degree but not entirely. And the reason for this article is to tell you why I don’t agree.
We know Google analyzes 200+ elements of a webpage while crawling and returning a result for a given search term and PageRank is one of them. While PR may not be the only player that Google considers most but it is still the most important player of all. Why? Soon you’ll find out.
What is Google PageRank or PR?
If you’re a webmaster then you may know what Google PageRank is and how it works. You may also know what important role it plays for your website. Even though most of us have an understanding of this technology, a lot of the time I’ve seen webmasters misinterpret it. Coming across so many of those misinterpretation, I finally thought I’ll explain it on my own words and give some official reference so that next time I see someone having slightest doubt about it I can then refer them to this article. I tried to write it in the simplest way possible so that people who aren’t familiar with this term or technology can understand it very easily. So, hopefully after reading this article you’ll know exactly what PR is and how it works.
WordPress 2.7 Will Be Released Today
WordPress 2.7 is about to be released on WordPress.com. The new WordPress will go live today the December 4, 2008 at 8pm Eastern Time. I am really excited to try out WordPress 2.7 as you know the new version had a complete facelift along with a lot of additional features.
Facebook’s Comments Date Error
Looks like there’s a glitch on Facebook’s Date & Time system for comments. Just posted a comment to a Group’s wall on Facebook and was surprised to see the publish date of the comment. The time of the comment looks fine, it’s the day that seems to be traveling in time machine. While the date and time should have been current like ““, the comment day seems to be jumping one day ahead showing “at 3:09pm tomorrow“. Here’s what I am talking about:
Websites To A Color Blind
Ever wondered how your website may look to a color blind? Now you can see it for yourself. Here’s how my website may look to a color blind person.
To check yours, just go to this ColorBlindMe website and put the URL and you’ll see what a color blind person will see on your website.
GMail Down
Looks like Google Mail team is having some technical problem as GMail is currently down as I write this article. The system doesn’t allow me to log in through the browser though I’ve just received couple of emails through the Push Email on my iPhone. So it looks like GMail team have just locked the front layer for maintenance or something. Continue Reading »
“Spider Man” & His 7 Legged Spider
It’s interesting to see where technology is taking us. While IBM is predicting that within next 5 years people will be able to talk to the web and the Web will also talk back; looks like someone is already using the web (or rather email) to do some talking for him.
An Australian man named David Thorne AKA “Spider Man” has recently made world wide news while trying to pay his outstanding bill with a 7 legged Spider.
