Are you planning to deploy ESXi on your server or computer system? To get started, you’ll need a bootable USB drive or CD/DVD with the ESXi installation media or ISO file. Rufus is a free and open-source tool for creating bootable USB drives. It is easy to use and supports various operating systems and installation media types.
Requirements
- A Windows computer with Rufus installed.
- The ESXi ISO file.
- A USB drive with at least 4GB of storage capacity.
Creating the ESXi installation media
- Connect the USB drive to the computer.
- Launch Rufus and select the USB drive from the device dropdown list.
- Choose “Disk or ISO image” from the Boot selection dropdown menu.
- Click on the “Select” button next to the “Boot selection” dropdown menu, and browse to the ESXi ISO file location on your computer.
- Rufus will automatically detect the file system and partition scheme. Make sure that the settings are correct.
- Give the USB drive a label in the “Volume label” field.
- Under the “Format Options” section, select “Create a bootable disk using” and choose “ISO Image” from the dropdown menu.
- Click on the “Start” button to begin the creation process.
- Rufus will show a warning that all data on the USB drive will be destroyed. Click on “OK” to continue.
- Rufus will format the USB drive and copy the ESXi ISO files to it.
- Once the process is complete, Rufus will display a message saying “Ready”.
- Safely eject the USB drive from the computer
Now, you have successfully created the ESXi installation media with Rufus. You can use this media to install ESXi on your server or computer system.