If you are automating the installation of ESXi using a scripted installation (aka Kickstart) and the KS.CFG is located on a CD-ROM device and you happen to be using a Nested ESXi VM and see the following message:
cannot find kickstart file on cd-rom with path -- /KS.CFG
You are probably using an IDE-based controller for the CD-ROM device, which the underlying IDE driver for ESXi has been removed as part of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0.
The fix is to simply remove the IDE controller and use a SATA controller and things will work as expected!
Thanks for the comment!