ESX4 to ESXi4

[scotty_p]

We have an ESX4 server with some vm's on it we were using for test. The evaluation license is expired, so we want to convert the server to ESXi4. Is there a way to do this without totally reinstalling the OS and wiping out the virtual machines?

Thanks,

Scott

[lamw · Accepted solution]

There are no migration/upgrade process between ESX to ESXi afaik, you'll need to do reinstall.

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William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

Twitter: @lamw

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

VMware Developer Comuunity

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[scotty_p]

I was afraid of that. Thanks.

[KiwiSi]

Hi Scott,

If I've read your question correctly - as William mentioned you will have to reinstall from fresh your ESX host with ESXi though you should be able to salvage any VMs you may have on local vmfs storage of the ESX host pre-reinstallation. This will save you having to recreate your VMs again - assuming you wanted to keep them.

Cheers,

Simon

Simon Seagrave

TechHead

VMware vExpert 2009

http://www.techhead.co.uk

http://twitter.com/kiwi_si

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[scotty_p]

Thanks Simon. What is the best way to do this? Can I leave them on the local disk? They are not on a SAN.

Thanks,

Scott

[admin]

Actually, you can migrate from ESX4 to ESXi4 without destroying your datastore. Follow my instructions in this post I made last month:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/247357?tstart=60

The script works quite well for me, however I'd appreciate any feedback that you have.

Thanks!

--Patrick.

[DSTAVERT]

The absolute simplest way to go from ESX to ESXi is to install ESXi to a USB stick. Boots, finds the datastore. Browse the datastore and delete the ESX COS VM and you are done.