Installing VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0
This post will cover an installation guide for VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 only. I will not cover VMware Infrastructure Client (the management console for VMware ESX Server) and Virtual Machine (VM) installation in this post. This VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 is completely free. Download the installation ISO from VMware website and get a free license. Burn the ISO image to a physical CD. The license enables you 2 CPUs support, NAS usage, iSCSI usage, SAN usage and up to 4-way virtual SMP support.
Let’s start. Power up your server and insert the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 installation CD into the CD-ROM drive. The installation process starts automatically. You will see the “VMware VMvisor Boot Menu” screen as below.
Next, you will see the “Loading VMware ISO” screen as below.
Then, you will see the “Welcome to the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0 Installation” screen as below. Select Install by hitting the Enter button to proceed.
Next, you will see the “End User License Agreement (EULA)” screen as below. Press F11 button to accept the license and continue.
You will then see the next screen “Select a Disk” as below telling you that which disk to install. Press Enter button to proceed.
Next, you need to press Enter button to confirm the disk selection in the “Confirm Disk Selection” screen as below.
The “Confirm Install” screen is displayed below. Press F11 button to proceed with the installation.
The “Installating ESX Server 3i” has started and 4% in progressing.
The “Installating ESX Server 3i” has started and 33% in progressing.
The “Installating ESX Server 3i” has started and 74% in progressing.
Next, you will see the “Installation Complete” screen as below. ESX Server 3i has been successfully installed and you can press the Enter button to reboot the server.
The “Rebooting Server” screen is displayed below. Let’s prepare for the new ESX Server 3i.
Then, you will see the “Loading VMware Hypervisor” screen as below.
The first screen of “VMware ESX Server 3i” is displayed as below.
The screen below shows “Loading module usb-uchi“.
The screen below shows “Loading module ide“.
The screen below shows “vmfs2 loaded successfully“.
Finally, the “VMware ESX Server 3i” started as below.
Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy it. I blog about the management console, VMware Infrastructure Client very soon. Stay tuned.
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A simple guy trying to put his name into the WWW place.
August 9th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I have downloaded it and try it out, too bad it can’t install to normal pc as i tried it doesn’t boot up.
But i tried on the Dell PowerEdge server and it works but i have not install it yet as I’m finding tools to convert VMWare Server image to VMWare EXSi 3, i search a lot of forum and they said need to purchase the VMWare converting tools for Enterprise only works.
Do you have any of the tools? for free..
August 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I always heard “VMware” but still did not have opportunities to experience it
August 14th, 2008 at 4:15 am
simon, I haven’t tried that and I don’t have the VMware Converter with Enterprise license.
iCalvyn, you should try it and you will love it.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Cool! But bear in mind, VMware ESX 3i have limited feature compare to VMware ESX 3.x and it’s FREE.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:30 am
If you have vmware virtual machines already and want to use them with VMware ESXi 3.5. You must convert them with the vmware converter starter edition. It will automatically in the conversion process upload those virtual machines to your ESXi server. Of course to do the conversion you need a windows machine to do it. I had about 8 vmware 2.0 machines that converted perfectly.