Booting from unRAID flash drive in ESXi guest

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

JimPhreak

Active Member
Oct 10, 2013
553
55
28
I've created a guest VM for unRAID on my ESXi 5.5 host and I'm trying to get it to boot to the unRAID boot flash drive I have plugged into my server. I added the USB device to the VM but when I boot the VM it doesn't detect any USB devices in the BIOS.

Do I need to pass through the USB controller in order to get this to work properly?
 

JimPhreak

Active Member
Oct 10, 2013
553
55
28
When I try to pass through the USB controller and add the PCI device to the VM I get this message at power on.

 

Zuhkov

New Member
Dec 30, 2012
27
1
3
Texas
You can also use a Plop CD ISO to boot to the flash drive (no passthrough required). That's what I've done for years. I will say that the VMDK solution boots MUCH faster, but using Plop is very simple and does not need to be updated as new unRAID versions come out.
 

JimPhreak

Active Member
Oct 10, 2013
553
55
28
When I was testing out unRAID, I tried this out to get it working on ESXi ESXi 5.x - pre-built VMDK for unRAID

It still uses your USB drive, but you don't have to passthrough the controller, just add the USB device to the VM
You can also use a Plop CD ISO to boot to the flash drive (no passthrough required). That's what I've done for years. I will say that the VMDK solution boots MUCH faster, but using Plop is very simple and does not need to be updated as new unRAID versions come out.
Thanks guys. I'm going to look at this later tonight when I have some time to fool with my server.

I'm just concerned though that when I add the USB device to the VM settings that it doesn't show up in the BIOS as being there.
 

JimPhreak

Active Member
Oct 10, 2013
553
55
28
When I was testing out unRAID, I tried this out to get it working on ESXi ESXi 5.x - pre-built VMDK for unRAID

It still uses your USB drive, but you don't have to passthrough the controller, just add the USB device to the VM
Was able to boot to unRAID console in my VM using the vmdk in that thread but after doing so I realized that my unRAID flash drive from my storage server is on version 6 beta 15 while the latest vmdk is for beta 14. And I'm not able to connect get network connectivity once the server boots, just console.

I'm guessing having my unRAID USB and the vmdk on different versions isn't going to work. But is there also something else I need to do since I'm moving from a physical server to a virtual one in regards to the NIC?