Specifications

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ESXi Embedded must not be on the host. ESXi Installable and ESXi Embedded cannot exist on the same
host.
Procedure
1 Insert the ESXi 4.0 Installable CD into the CD-ROM drive.
2 Set the BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM device.
Press the key required to activate your machine’s BIOS setup. This key is often a function key or Delete.
3 On the Welcome screen, press Enter to continue with the installation.
4 Read the VMware end-user license agreement and accept it by pressing F11.
5 In the Select a Disk screen, select the disk drive on which to install ESXi 4.0 and press Enter.
NOTE Do not rely on the disk order in the list to select a disk. The disk order is determined by the BIOS
and might be out of order. This might occur on systems where drives are continuously being added and
removed.
If the disk you selected contains data, the Confirm Disk Selection screen displays.
6 Press F11 to start the installation.
7 When the installation is complete, remove the installation CD.
8 Press Enter to reboot the host.
During the reboot operation, the VFAT scratch partition is created on the disk.
9 Set the first boot device to be the drive on which you installed ESXi (in Step 5).
To set the boot device, press the key required to enter your machine’s BIOS setup. This key is often a
function key or Delete.
After the installation is complete, you can migrate existing VMFS data to the ESXi 4.0 Installable host.
You can boot a single machine from each ESXi image. Booting multiple devices from a single shared ESXi
image is not supported.
What to do next
Set up basic administration and network configuration for ESXi.
See Post-Setup Considerations for ESXi.
Setting Up ESXi
Setting up ESXi involves configuring the Administrative (root) password for the ESXi host and configuring
the default networking behavior.
Before you begin these tasks, you must have the following set up:
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An ESXi system that is connected to a monitor and a keyboard and that is powered on.
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(Optional) At least one other computer to act as a management station. This computer must be running
Windows and have network access to the ESXi host.
Consider using a network with a DHCP server.
NOTE If a system failure occurs, you can restore the ESXi software.
When you power on the ESXi host for the first time, it enters an autoconfiguration phase during which system
network and storage devices are configured with defaults. After the host completes the autoconfiguration
phase, the direct console appears on the attached monitor.
Getting Started with ESXi InstallableESXi EmbeddedESX
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