Downloaded ESXi 4.1 iso, burned to a CD, booted CD, go through screens, hit F11 to install. Immediately get the following error:
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Installation operation failed!
The installation operation has encountered a fatal error:
Unable to find system image to install. This is due to the image not being mounted correctly or the CD-ROM not being supported.
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The hardware is a homebuilt system with Intel DQ35JO board, latest BIOS, Intel E6850 CPU, 8GB RAM, 2 SATA drives. I know this is not on the compatible list but is a "whitebox". I've installed ESXi 3.5 on it in the past and gotten it up and running, and I've seen other success stories with this board/CPU. Yes I enabled virtualization mode in the BIOS and powered down/up.
Here's what I've tried:
-- Redownload VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.1.0-260247.x86_64.iso to make sure it wasn't corrupt (2 copies compared perfectly)
-- Tried a different CDROM drive (IDE)
-- Created a bootable USB stick using uNetBootin 4.7.1 and booted from it
-- Switched SATA setting in BIOS from AHCI to IDE
I keep getting the exact same error. I've searched here and everywhere and find no reference to this error.
Help -- what do you all suggest for my next step?