Powering on a virtual machine fails with the error: No bootable device was detected
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Article ID: 344492
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Updated On:
Products
VMware vSphere ESXi
Issue/Introduction
Symptoms:
When powering on the virtual machine, the Events tab in the vSphere Client reports a warning
You see one of these warnings:
No bootable device was detected. A bootable device might be a CD, floppy, hard disk, or network device, as when booting with PXE.|0ATo install an operating system, insert a bootable CD or floppy and restart the virtual machine
No operating system was found. If you have an operating system installation disc, you can insert the disc into the system's CD-ROM drive and restart the virtual machine
You see similar messages in the vmware.log file:
<YYYY-MM-DD><time>| vcpu-0| I120: Msg_Post: Warning <YYYY-MM-DD><time>| vcpu-0| I120: [msg.Backdoor.OsNotFound] No operating system was found. If you have an operating system installation disc, you can insert the disc into the system's CD-ROM drive and restart the virtual machine. <YYYY-MM-DD><time>| vcpu-0| I120: ---------------------------------------- <YYYY-MM-DD><time>| vcpu-0| I120: Vigor_MessageRevoke: message 'msg.Backdoor.OsNotFound' (seq 1983580) is revoked</time></time></time></time>
This error message is displayed if an operating system is not installed in the virtual machine and an operating system installation disc is not inserted in the CD-ROM drive.
Resolution
To resolve this issue, insert the operating system installation disc into the CD-ROM drive, restart the virtual machine, and install the operating system. For more information, see General Installation Instructions for All VMware Products.