Blank screen when running BootIt BM in a VMware virtual machine
When attempting to boot from the BootIt BM Setup media inside a VMware virtual machine, you may see an initial on-screen message from BootIt BM and then a blank screen. Typically, the system will hang at that point and require a reboot, with the BootIt BM program never appearing on the screen. This can happen whether booting the VM from a real floppy disk or CD/DVD device, or from a floppy or CD/DVD image. It can also occur when attempting to boot a virtual machine from a real (physical) hard drive that has BootIt BM installed on it.
This happens because the VMware BIOS does not support the VESA graphics mode that BootIt BM defaults to when the Setup media is created. To resolve the issue, select the Standard VGA video option when creating the Setup media. While this will reduce the available colors to 16, the BootIt BM program will otherwise be fully functional inside the virtual machine.
Note: The same change can be made after an Setup media has been created by locating the file TBOSBOOT.STR on the media, opening that file in a text editor, and changing the line BOOTITBM to BOOTITBM /S.
This happens because the VMware BIOS does not support the VESA graphics mode that BootIt BM defaults to when the Setup media is created. To resolve the issue, select the Standard VGA video option when creating the Setup media. While this will reduce the available colors to 16, the BootIt BM program will otherwise be fully functional inside the virtual machine.
Note: The same change can be made after an Setup media has been created by locating the file TBOSBOOT.STR on the media, opening that file in a text editor, and changing the line BOOTITBM to BOOTITBM /S.