Installing Windows XP Professional in VMWare ESX-Server

Having been working with VMWare for a couple of years I finally upgraded from VMWare Workstation to an ESX-server. ESX means “more power”!!

Well, installing an OS in VMWare is quite easy, just create a new virtual machine and off you go! Windows XP will boot from CD (or even better use an ISO image) and detect all of the virtual hardware without any hassle.

Installing Windows 2003 Server on the ESX is just as easy; but installing my first Windows XP client kinda got to me. Windows refused to detect my virtual hard-disk (neither the LSI nor the BusLogic controller would be detected by the installer). So after a while I figured, there would be some floppy-images on the ESX. So I pressed F6 during the startup of the installer to add the SCSI-Driver provided on the floppy.

As it turned out, the SCSI-Driver only supports the BusLogic controller … instead of the LSI; which is the default-controller added to a new virtual machine.

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