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Bravo 7555Flag for United States of America

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VMWare ESXi newbie that needs help!!

Hey guys,

I just built up a new Dell server with VMWare ESXi server 4.1 and the parent company sent me an image of a Server 2008 Operating System with sensitive data on it. How do I get that image off of the external hard drive and installed onto the VMWare box now??

I have never done this before and I am completely lost!!!

I am logged in via the VSphere client and lost where to go from here now....
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Ernie Beek
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What kind of image is it?
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ASKER

It says VMware virtual disk file

its a .vmdk extension
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Tolomir
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You have to move the vmdk to the datastore of the ESXi server though.
how do i move the vmdk to the datastore of the ESXi server?
You need something like winscp to connect to the esxi server (http://winscp.net). Hook up the disk to your workstation, install winscp and you should be able to move it over. Winscp is a file explorer which can also connect to *nix system (so also ESX).
I have VSphere client setup on my workstation... wont that work?
What sort of license do you have for vSphere?  If it includes Converter, you can install the Converter plug-in on the vSphere box and use it to import the VM files you have now (.vmdk, .vmx, etc).  That would be the cleanest way to go about this.
I just installed the free version
http://www.vmware.com/go/getconverter

You should be able to download a copy of converter from that link, if I remember correctly.  

You can also download an evaluation copy of vCenter which is fully functional and good for 60-days, it will include Converter.
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LeeOsbornerUK:

I need to upload the whole folder containing the .vmdk, .vmsd. and vmxf, .vmx, and nvram files right? not just the .vmdk?
yes :-)