Tag Archives: fatal error 33

ESXi “Error loading /k.b00” “Fatal error: 33 (Inconsistent Data)

I was deploying ESXi 6 on a new server, booting off USB thumb-drive where I put the ESXi installer. (Installer creatred with Rufus), I got the following error just a few seconds into the install

Error loading /k.b00
Compressed MD5: 23a1XXXXXXXXXX
Decompressed MD5: 00000000000000000000000000
Fatal error: 33 (Inconsistent data)

Turned out to be a bad USB drive.
Bad (usually cheap generic drives) work well for storing files, but in my experience, lack the ability to be used as install media or “Live CD’s”. I am not sure what makes one drive work over the other, but assume it has to do with the controller interface on those drives.