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Linker3000
Asked: 2014-07-05 06:05:42 +0800 CST

VMware ESXi dual / triple boot on a test machine

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Has anyone tried to setup a dual or triple boot (ESXi 5.5, Linux, Windows Server 2012R2) machine? This is for an app and controller card testing environment - at the moment we're dual-booting Linux/Windows and changing the startup disk through the server's boot menu for ESXi.

I'll give it a go myself if necessary, but if anyone else has tried and knows whether it's possible and/or there's any gotchas that would save some time and be appreciated.

Thanks.

vmware-esxi

2 Answers

  1. ESXi will run from a USB stick, that is probably the easiest way. It won't be straightforward to dual boot just like an OS from the harddrive because it uses multiple partitions set up in a certain way, rather than a single booting partition.

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  2. It's been done with some success here: http://www.highlyunsupported.com/2012/03/multiboot-esxi-5-windows-2008-r2-rhel-6.html. Key to success is install ESXi first unless you are also installing Xen. Use Grub to chainload the ESXi SysLinux bootloader, that's the easiest path and the one I took. Alternatively if you are using a server with a built-in RAID controller you can use that to select what to boot.

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