Backing up, cloning USB drives for ESXI 6.0, WinImage, cfg format
Hello,
Let me start by setting that I have read:
How to Backup an ESXi installation on an USB Flash Drive or SD card, for security or redundancy.
And also - Bank6: Not a VMWare boot bank No hypervisor found
Unfortunately, I had already made some images and backup USBs running Winimage. This seemed to be general fashion, so it was quickly adopted by me.
When attempted to boot with one of these, I did get the "Bank6: Not a VMWare boot bank No hypervisor found" error.
Is this likely due to the Winimage cloning process? Is there a way to confirm? Just want to verify both the images and devices are worthless before overwriting them.
Can a working USB EXSI bootable device be cloned to another USB device successfully?
Also, there is a suggestion to use vicfg-cfgbackup <conn_options> -s C:\backup.txt to create a backup of the configuration. When doing this with the VSPhere Client CLI (vicfg-cfgbackup.pl), the resulting file is binary (not text). Is the ".txt" extension just a placeholder?
Lastly, is it confirmed that the utility at http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/ works with 6.0 and 6.5 ESXI?
Let me start by setting that I have read:
How to Backup an ESXi installation on an USB Flash Drive or SD card, for security or redundancy.
And also - Bank6: Not a VMWare boot bank No hypervisor found
Unfortunately, I had already made some images and backup USBs running Winimage. This seemed to be general fashion, so it was quickly adopted by me.
When attempted to boot with one of these, I did get the "Bank6: Not a VMWare boot bank No hypervisor found" error.
Is this likely due to the Winimage cloning process? Is there a way to confirm? Just want to verify both the images and devices are worthless before overwriting them.
Can a working USB EXSI bootable device be cloned to another USB device successfully?
Also, there is a suggestion to use vicfg-cfgbackup <conn_options> -s C:\backup.txt to create a backup of the configuration. When doing this with the VSPhere Client CLI (vicfg-cfgbackup.pl), the resulting file is binary (not text). Is the ".txt" extension just a placeholder?
Lastly, is it confirmed that the utility at http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/ works with 6.0 and 6.5 ESXI?
John Tsioumpris
Can you try Easeus Cloning and report back....just follow the instructions...for scector by sector clone
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Thanks for the reply, Andrew.
Can you confirm that the the utility at http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/ works with 6.0 and 6.5 ESXI?
The link http://slymsoft.com/esxi-conf-backup/ is not coming up:
The reference using a .TXT extension is actually one of your posted comments in Bank6: Not a VMWare boot bank No hypervisor found
Can you confirm that the the utility at http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/ works with 6.0 and 6.5 ESXI?
The link http://slymsoft.com/esxi-conf-backup/ is not coming up:
The reference using a .TXT extension is actually one of your posted comments in Bank6: Not a VMWare boot bank No hypervisor found
The website was working, if the application is not available it can be used as per my EE Article using vSphere vCLI.
As for the TXT message, just an example, the file can be anything.
Not used USB Imaging tool for 6.0 or 6.5, we now use dd. It never worked properly for later versions of 5.5, hence we stopped using it.
So I cannot confirm or deny. I think it's doubtful, and I would use dd, and by the time you've messed around with dd, imaging tools - you would have already installed it to USB or SD card.
If I get a chance in the Lab, I'll confirm it.
As for the TXT message, just an example, the file can be anything.
Not used USB Imaging tool for 6.0 or 6.5, we now use dd. It never worked properly for later versions of 5.5, hence we stopped using it.
So I cannot confirm or deny. I think it's doubtful, and I would use dd, and by the time you've messed around with dd, imaging tools - you would have already installed it to USB or SD card.
If I get a chance in the Lab, I'll confirm it.
ASKER
One last follow up. Can I restore the config file from ESXI 6.0 to a fresh 6.0 U2? Same question for 5.5 > 6.0 U2?
It's not supported.
Configuration files are ONLY to be used between the same BUILDS, e.g. versions of ESXi.
Unpredictable results can happen if you restore between different BUILDS e.g. versions.
Configuration files are ONLY to be used between the same BUILDS, e.g. versions of ESXi.
Unpredictable results can happen if you restore between different BUILDS e.g. versions.