Hi,
I am totally new to this setup but I really need some help with my setup. I recently purchased the ASUS TW100-E5 barebone server to be used for a project at home. My intent is to install ESXi 3.5 or 4.0 on it. I haven't been able to on ESXi 4.0 as it requires specific network adapters. On the other hand, I decided to install esxi 3.5 but I keep getting the error "Unable to find a supported device to write the VMware ESX Server 3i 3.5.0. image to:". I already have installed 3 WD harddrives (1TB each) but currently plan on using only one.
I am not why the esxi installation file is unable to detect the harddrives as they show in the BIOS. The chipset is Nvidia Quadro FX470 with 2 realtek RT8111C gigabit adapters. I am totally stucka dn do not know what to do. Please help as I have been reading some related Posts on this but still not sure.

What model of SATA controller do you have and what's the PCI id? http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/find_PCI_ID.php

Thanks for the reply. The SATA controller is Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller with Vendor ID 10de and Device ID 0AB4. Connected on the motherboard (P5N-VM WS) are 2 realtek RTL811C Gigabit LAN controllers. I already have WinXP Pro 32 bit installed on one of the harddrive and it seem to be working fine so far but need multiple environments to run vms. Please advice....pls

Would you have a USB flash drive (1 GB or bigger) that you could test booting from. You'll have a better chance with 4.0 and I would first suggest working on the storage controller. If that can be made to work then you can try the realtek driver that is available or drop in another NIC.

I do have a 8G USB drive. So should I copy the iso file on the DVD media to a USB for ESXi 4.0 and use it to boot. What about the driver? How should get the realtek driver added to the boot device and is there a way to make an iso file on a usb bootable? Please advice....

Thanks Dave. I will try again as soon as I get home tonight and let you know how all goes on the installation. What about the realtek network adapter controllers on my system? Should that matter or you believe this process including the 4.0 build will work the magic? Thanks once again for all you do Dave.

Drew

I would just start with getting the SATA controller to work. If that goes well then it's fairly easy to add the realtek driver.

Great. I have started working on the USB build to get it going so I can use it when I get home. I am hoping that this will at least fix the SATA controller issue. Thanks and I will let you know of any updates.

Dave on the link that you provided for building a bootable USB, the hyperlink to downloading dd.exe does not seem to work. Do you have any idea as to a safe location where I can obtain the dd.exe file?

Drew