Please validate that each step below is true for your environment. Each step will provide instructions or a link to a document, to eliminate possible causes and take corrective action as necessary.
Note: For ESXi versions 8.0 U1 and 8.0 U2 (or any patch on these lines), if you encounter a PSOD after an ESXi Quick Boot upgrade, simply rebooting the host will solve the problem. VMware is aware of this issue and working on a fix.
This means that a genuine ESXi version has booted, but the configuration data has been tampered with or is corrupted and cannot be recovered. see Installing and Setting Up ESXi.
This means that we are unable to recover with the provided recovery key. Ensure the input recovery key is correct; otherwise, see Installing and Setting Up ESXi.
To retrieve the ESXi recovery key, run esxcli system settings encryption recovery list