VMware will allow you to configure a huge amount of DRAM to a VM, but then won't let you start the VM because it does not know where to store bytes for that VM if it needs to deschedule the VM.

Problem details:

You have installed ESX or vSphere on a disk, and you have created additional virtual machine(s) on that disk.

You want to add a lot of memory to your VM(s). The amount of memory in your VM, plus the size of the root disk of your VM is greater than X.

VMware will not let you boot your VM, because it realizes that it does not have enough space left on the ESX disk to back the total commits it may need to make from the page cache, when it needs to suspend the VM.

Solution:

Create a large enough VMFS disk store somewhere else, or get it from an NFS volume and add it to your host.

In the example pictured below, we created such a VMFS disk store and named it swapesxstore.

Next we edited the host configuration as shown in the picture. We enabled a nondefault swap store by setting the two parameters as shown in the figure below:

Reboot your ESX server and now you can power up your VM using the modified swap file.

“Unable to install VMware tools. An error occurred while trying to access image file “/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso.”

A quick solution to this problem is:

• Copy the .ISO file /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso from the same or a similar version of “ESX classic” on to your data store. Here I am using windows as my guest OS, therefore I am copied windows.iso. (I assume you have a licensed version of ESX classic.)

• Shutdown you VM, edit the setting of your VM using VIClient.

• Highlight the CD/DVD drive on the left side of the “Virtual Machine Properties” dialog box.

• Select “Datastore ISO file” from the “Device Type” group on right hand side of the “Virtual Machine Properties” dialog box.

• Click on the “Browse” button and find the ISO file that you just copied onto your datastore.

• Make sure the “Connected” and “Connect at power on” check boxes are checked.

• Power on you VM

• Run setup.exe from the newly mounted CDROM.

• Supermicro X8DTN+ Server with Intel Core i7 X5570 processors, American Megatrends BIOS R1.1
• VMware's ESX Server 4.0 as the hypervisor
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 64-bit as the guest operating system

Your BIOS, VMM and guest OS might be different from what I used, however you can apply the same methodology to your hardware and software.

1. First step is to enable VT-d in BIOS. You will not find it under CPU configurations. Go to your BIOS and select "North Bridge" under chipset.

2. Select Tylersburg IOH Configuration.

3. Select Intel VT for Directed I/O Configuration.

4. Enable VT-d.

5. Save and exit. Unplug the power from your system, wait for one minute and plug it back again.

6. Power up your system, connect VIClient to ESX server.

7. On VIClient, goto "Configuration" tab, click "Advanced Settings" under hardware and then click "Configure Passthrough."

8. A pop-up dialog box will appear. We want to confiigure vmnic1 for direct assignment. Select vmnic1 and click OK.

9. Now you will see "Intel Corporation 85276 Gigabit Network Connection [vmnic1]" in the list of devices available for direct access for virtual machines. Reboot your ESX server.

10. Now edit the settings of your virtual machine to which you want to add the pass through device. In our case 85276 network adapter. Click on "Add hardware" and then select "PCI device" as shown in figure below. Click "Next."

11. Select "Intel Corporation 85276 Gigabit Network Connection" from the drop down list and click "Next" button.

12. You will see "New PCI Device" will be added. Click OK and close the dialog box.

13. Power on your virtual machine. Now guest OS will detect a new hardware device that has been added. You need to install appropriate drivers for your device.

14. For Intel 85276 NIC, download the driver file "PROVISTAX64_v13_5.exe" from Intel's website. Double click on the executable and install the driver.

15. You will see a message that "Device driver software installed successfully." You are ready to use your directly assigned Intel Corporation 85276 Gigabit Network Adapter.