More info, I removed one of the drives in the server, plugged in a CD ROM right into the SATA interface, ran a power supply manually outside the server to power the CD ROM by itself, installed VMware with the dang drive, and right after I get into the server, I can't find the CD ROM to save my life!? I had better results with the usb CD ROM.
Is this due to ESX5i being junk compared to 4?