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Database and GIS Consultant.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

How to create a bootable USB flash drive to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.5

Objective: Create a bootable USB flash / thumb drive to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.5

Pre-Requisites:-

a)      Download Universal USB Installer (Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.5.1.exe) from www.pendrivelinux.com
b)      Download  VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi  (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.5.0-1331820.x86_64.iso) from www.vmware.com
c)      I have downloaded these above 2 files in a folder called "c:\sw" in my laptop that runs 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium and will use this laptop to create a bootable thumb drive.
d)      Need 1 empty USB flash drive (at least half  GB capacity), remember this drive will be formatted before creating it as a bootable drive

 Create the bootable USB Drive:-

1)      Attach the USB flash drive to the laptop
2)      Execute the downloaded Universal USB Installer
3)      Click “I Agree” to agree the License Agreement:-


4)      In step 1 (of below screen), choose Ubuntu (By the way, EXSi Hypervisor was built on Linux kernel):- 

  
5)      Click “Browse” in step 2 (of above screen), type in the path and file name and hit the down arrow in the “File name” section and choose the correct iso file of the VMWare Hypervisor and click Open as shown below. (browse don’t work quite well, might have got fixed in newer versions):-


6)       In step 3 (of below screen) choose the USB drive and check the "we will format" option. Then click “create”:


7)       Click Yes to the below warning:-


8)      Installation and extraction on progress:-



9)      Click Close when complete:-


10)      Now the USB flash drive is ready to be used as an installable / bootable drive, eject it:-


It has consumed disk space of 325MB in the USB flash drive. 

Next step is to Install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.5 using this USB flash drive.
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