I tried both of the two options you suggested without any luck, but maybe I am missing something.
First I connected the external USB Hard Drive and then I searched VSphere Client for an easy (i.e. GUI) way to map that NTFS drive, but I could not find anything. I was hoping that I could mount it at some mount point in the VMFS, then simply copy the files to the VMWare Host's hard drive so the ISOs would be there for future purposes. Again, no luck. Am I doing somehting wrong? What is the step-by-step procedure to mount this drive onto the VMFS?
Second I tried to configure the VM's CDROM/DVDROM to point to this external USB drive or to an ISO on the drive, but the VMWare host does not give me that option. Maybe I am missing something.
FWIW - I was able to figure out how to connect this USB drive to a VM once the VM has an OS installed, but I am trying to install a new OS on a new VM. So, that didn't help.
FYI - I am running vShpere Hypervision ESXi 5.0 and using vSphere Cleint 5.0 to administer. I can connect to the VM Host via Putty (SSH) and I remember some Unix commands.
Thanks in advance, Brad