How do I boot ESXi 5 from a MBR-disk instead of GPT ?

[continuum]

I need to boot ESXi 5 from a non GPT partitioned disk.
If I try to do so it complains that all bootbanks use a wrong partition type.

I hope there is a boot.cfg parameter like

allow.obscure.disklayouts=yes

any other ideas are welcome

[kaos]

Hi,

ESXi 5 is GPT based installs. If you would like to have a MBR based fresh installed system, there is a hackish way. Have a previous installation of ESX/ESXi 4 and a VMFS on disk. Do a fresh install with preserve vmfs, that should give you a fresh installed box with MBR. You can later upgrade vmfs3 to Vmfs 5  manually from vSphere Client.

Otherwise an upgrade, should also always leave you with an MBR system.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

[continuum]

Thanks for the explanation

I think I found a different way
it allows to run esxi5 from a single fat partition that I can create with Windows.

It surely is not supported but it will do for my needs

[markj8e]

Hi

Would love to know how you have done this.

Thanks

[titaniumlegs]

This is covered in the vSphere Upgrade Guide pp.74-75, available in various formats here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-pubs.html

[markj8e]

Thanks I will give this a try, however I was also interested in how continuum did this with windows.

[continuum]

Hi
that is quiet easy.
I create a primary FAT partition and install syslinix bootloader.
Then I edit the syslinux.cfg file and tell syslinux to chainload mboot.c32 instead of the usual safeboot.c32

When that is done I only have to add the files that are usually stored in the active bootbank..

This way I can boot esxi5 from multiboot-sticks are CDs and dont need any fancy partitioning scheme.

Be careful: this no longer behaves like a regular ESXi - it does not keep changes in the config the way a normal ESXi does.

I dont use such a stick for production - just for recovery and demo-needs it is nice.

Let me know if you want detailed instructions

[markj8e]

Thanks. Will give it a shot.