I could not get the newly created VM to boot to a CD from the host ESX server. Believe me I checked all of the obvious reasons first, like is the CD was not connected, boot options, etc.
The fix below is not a new technique and I know that this topic has been written about many times before this posting. I simply look to document things in chronological order and condense the steps without writing a long winded explanation that turns into a short novel.
6 Quick steps I used for a stubborn VM not booting to a CD
1. I created an ISO image file from the Winidows 2003 CD with Roxio on my laptop
2. I then copied the ISO file from my latop to a new folder on the ESX datastore. I used Winscp to do the copy.
3. Then I powered on my new Windows 2003 Server VM install. I pointed the CD to the ISO file I had copied above.
4. I then downloaded the VMware SCSI Disk Driver file "vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp"
5. I hit F6 during the Windows install so that I could loed the poper MAS storage device driver
6. When prompted for a storage device driver I then pointed it to the "vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp" file
Done!
I was now on my way and I could continue with my install and worry about the reasons why I could not boot to the CD in the first place at a later time.
Downloads
VMware SCSI Driver http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/drivers_tools.html
WinSCP http://winscp.net/eng/download.php
