Installing VMWare ESXi 4 on a workstation computer gives vmfs3 failure

Question

I need to run VMWare ESXi on a normal PC for creating two virtual machines (one Linux and one Windows). I suposed that will be easy as install vmware-server on Linux or something but I've found that it isn't.

When I boot the CD with the latest ISO avaible here I always get the same error:

Vmkctl.HostCtlException: Unable to load module /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/vmfs3: Failure

I have been looking for internet and some people said that it was a NIC problem so I figured out that was my motherboard Atheros 1Gbit problem and tried customizing the ESXi with http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/customize_oem_tgz.php but... nothing.

So I don't know what more to do. The specs of the computer are the next:

ASUS P8H67-V B3 Revision
Interl Core i7-2600, 3.40GHz
8GB DDR3 RAM (2x4 DIMM)
2 x 1TB HDD, with hardware RAID1

I've tried with RAID1 and SATA of and using as IDE and nothing.

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

ESXi is indeed very different from VMWare Server and most importantly has an extremely limited hardware compatibility list - because it's designed for modern servers, not any old PC.

Basically if your hardware's not down on the list, it's not going to work.

Answer 2

VMware ESXi is very sensitive to the hardware it is installed on. It seems unlikely that a 'normal' PC will be on the Hardware Compatibility List. If your system isn't on the HCL then it is unlikely to work.

You could try something like VirtualBox for your virtualisation.