Does VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1 installation erase all data from the disk? [closed]

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A task assigned to me is to virtualize the Lab using VMware vSphere products (ESXi and vSphere Client). I spent couple of days to get know-how about vSphere and finally decided to put my hands on it......While installation begins I proceeded very carefully and i reached this Warning message from installer:

Warning: This disk will be repartitioned.

What I understand from this warning message that my all hard disk is going to be repartitioned and obviously formatted and em gona loose my all data.

I was about to confirm but suddenly realize that "repartition" mean my all data on the disk will be gone, and this is what I really don’t like to face.

My problem is that i want to install VMware ESXi 5.1 on a machine which has single hard disk with 4 partitions(3 primary, 1 extended). All three primary partitions are hosting one OS; mean 3 Operating Systems are already installed on each primary partition.

So I want to install VMware ESXi on one of the primary partition, i am ready to lose OS on that primary partition but I do not want to lose my other 2 OS and data on extended partition.

How can I install VMware ESXi 5.1 alongside my other OS without losing data??? is it possible??? If yes guide me please guide, if not then give me kind suggestions.

i come here after googling. ;-(

Bundle of thanks..........

Answer 1

Unfortunately, if you only have one local disk, the ESX installation will reformat and repartition that drive. There is some good news though!

Instead, you can download ESXi, which is a free hypervisor and is considered "installable". So, you can put the ESXi software onto something like an external HD or a USB stick and you will be able to boot your ESXi server using whichever external drive you select. This will also allow you to keep the partitions on your local disk in place while you use that disk's remaining space for your VM datastores.

Here is a great link from VMware that shows you exactly how to do it, enjoy!

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1020655