After upgrading an embedded ESXi 4.1 host to 5.0 U1 and subsequently upgrading the host to 5.1 U1 using vSphere Update Manager, an error might occur during the boot process and message is displayed on the purple screen similar to the following:
2013-07-18T10:58:26.271Z cpu0:8192)VisorFSTar: 1743: local.tgz for 0x1a000 bytes
2013-07-18T10:58:26.278Z cpu0:8192)WARNING: VisorFSTar: 968: Missing directory dropbear for etc/dropbear/dropbear_dss_host_key
2013-07-18T10:58:26.290Z cpu0:8192)RamDisk: 101: Invalid tar image:Boot image is corrupted(0xbad00ce)
2013-07-18T10:58:26.299Z cpu0:8192)World: 8376: PRDA 0x418040000000 ss 0x0 ds 0x4018 es 0x4018 fs 0x4018 gs 0x4018
2013-07-18T10:58:26.309Z cpu0:8192)World: 8378: TR 0x4020 GDT 0x412200021000 (0x402f) IDT 0x418032912000 (0xfff)
2013-07-18T10:58:26.319Z cpu0:8192)World: 8379: CR0 0x8001003d CR3 0x468000 CR4 0x216c
2013-07-18T10:58:26.459Z cpu0:8192)Backtrace for current CPU #0, worldID=8192, ebp=0x417ff2806c80
2013-07-18T10:58:26.468Z cpu0:8192)0x417ff2806c80:[0x41803287ad3a]PanicvPanicInt@vmkernel#nover+0x61 stack: 0x417ff2806d70, 0x41803289
2013-07-18T10:58:26.479Z cpu0:8192)0x417ff2806c90:[0x41803287b402]Panic_vPanicCustom@vmkernel#nover+0x15 stack: 0x3000000008, 0x417ff2
2013-07-18T10:58:26.491Z cpu0:8192)0x417ff2806d70:[0x4180328900af]StatusTerm_SysAbort@vmkernel#nover+0xa6 stack: 0x417ff2806e10, 0x100
2013-07-18T10:58:26.503Z cpu0:8192)0x417ff2806e50:[0x418032800ba8]LegacyBootVMKernel@vmkernel#nover+0xad7 stack: 0x1400000100, 0xa0000
2013-07-18T10:58:26.515Z cpu0:8192)0x417ff2806fe0:[0x418032800f41]BootVMKernel@vmkernel#nover+0xac stack: 0x490fa8, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0
2013-07-18T10:58:26.590Z cpu0:8192)The system has found a problem on your machine and cannot continue.
Could not load multiboot modules: Boot image is corrupted
2013-07-18T10:58:26.605Z cpu0:8192)
2013-07-18T10:58:26.675Z cpu0:8192)vmkernel 0x0 .data 0x0 .bss 0x0
2013-07-18T10:58:26.682Z cpu0:8192)chardevs 0x418032c70000 .data 0x417fc0000000 .bss 0x417fc00008a0
2013-07-18T10:58:26.692Z cpu0:8192)user 0x418032c75000 .data 0x417fc0400000 .bss 0x417fc0413240
2013-07-18T10:58:26.752Z cpu0:8192)No place on disk to dump data.
Debugger waiting(world 8192) Halting PCPU 1.
$S05#b8Halting PCPU 13.
To workaround this issue, use anyone of the following: