Create a Bootable ESXi 7 USB Installer on macOS

Last year I posted a guide on creating a ESXi 6.7 USB Installer on macOS without any 3rd party tools. This is an updated guide using ESXi 7.0b. I’ve included a short video demonstration. Note, this guide is based on macOS only, if you are using Windows please use the Rufus utility.

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Prerequisites

• Download the ESXi Installation ISO (I used ESXi 7.0b)
• A USB Flash Drive Minimum 8GB

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Step 1

Open Terminal and list the mounted disks using the diskutil list command.

diskutil listCode language: PHP (php)

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Step 2

Insert the USB Flash then run the diskutil list command again.

diskutil listCode language: PHP (php)

You should now see another disk show up, in my case disk3. Take note for the disk#.

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Step 3

Now we need to format the drive with filesystem FAT32 and partition map MBR using the following command. Don’t forget to use the disk# number obtained in step 2.

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "ESXI" MBR disk#Code language: PHP (php)

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Step 4

Unmount the USB Drive, Note: This is not the same as Eject. Don’t forget to use the disk# number obtained in step 2.

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#Code language: PHP (php)

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Step 5

Start the command line partitoner fdisk in interactive mode (You will need administrative privileges for this).

sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk#Code language: PHP (php)

1. Flag the first partition on the volume as active and bootable. “f 1“
2. Write the changes. “write“
3. Quit fdisk. “quit“

f 1
write
quit

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Step 6

Mount the ESXi Installation ISO and copy all the contents from the ISO to the USB flash drive.

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Step 7

Locate the file ISOLINUX.CFG on the flash drive and rename it SYSLINUX.CFG file.

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Step 8

Edit the SYSLINUX.CFG file with TextEdit, Don’t use a Word program it will mess up the file. Find the line starting with APPEND -c boot.cfg and append -p 1 to it.

APPEND -c boot.cfg -p 1Code language: CSS (css)

Save and close the file and eject the USB flash drive.

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Step 9

I booted the ESXi installer on my Intel NUC Skull Canyon successfully.

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Here’s a Tip! the installer loads the files into memory so you can choose the same USB drive to install ESXi and boot from. Hope you enjoyed this guide.