Qemu converted images will not boot in later versions of Esxi as qemu coverversions use the VMware workstation disk format. This problem is easily fixed from the ESXi CLI...
- Create a new VM as "Other 5.x Linux (64-bit)"
- Upload the converted vmdk image to the VM's ESXi directory and run:
vmkfstools -i source.vmdk destintation.vmdk
- Point your new OWRT vm to
destintation.vmdk
. Make sure to use a SCSI or SAS disk controller - Finish any other VM configs you need and boot. If you still cant boot, also check secure boot settings on the VM.
Qemu does not support coversion to thin vmdk files. You need to use dd to copy the contents of the raw image to an existing thin provisioned boot disk. See this tutotial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJoTYxk-EYU