VM not seeing hard drive in Windows Server installation

[hellcasteswife]

Ok. I must be missing something simple or am blind. I have a clustered ESX server, freshly installed. I created a new virtual machine with the wizard and just default settings including a Hard Disk. I attached the CD drive to an ISO image and powered it up. Had to use the keyboard because VMware Tools can't be installed until the OS is on the machine. The windows installer starts, but then says it couldn't find any hard drives. Did I miss a step somewhere along the line?

VM version: ESXi 6.7 and later (VM version 14)
Server version: Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)

[Kinnison]

Hi,

What controller are you using for your virtual disk? Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 should recognize The "LSI logic SAS" controller without too much trouble.

Regards,
Ferdinando

[unaturalx]

Thank you SOOOOOOOOOO much!! This fixed my issue !

[IRIX201110141]

A fresh installed vSphere 6.7 Cluster n 2023? 6.x went End of Support last October... but anyways....  does your ISO ever worked before or do you use it the first time?
I ask because i have it seen 3 dozen of times that a damaged Windows ISO was the fault and it failed always when you should select the Disk. Please check the size and the MD5/Sha256 checksum of your ISO.

Windows Server VM should use the LSI Controller for it boot drive.

Regards,
Joerg

[sent317]

I had the same issue and changing the controller to LSI in the VM settings resolved the issue