VMWare: Existing install on ntfs?

rav · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Nov 2003 Posts: 114

Is it possible to get vmware to run using an existing install of WinXP which is on a ntfs partition?

Doomwookie · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 2:25 am Post subject:

Yes, but it can really goof up your existing install of windows on that partition if your not careful.
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rav · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Nov 2003 Posts: 114

Note: I probably should have mentioned that the ntfs partition is mounted as READ ONLY.
Ive tryed several things so far, anyone done this before who can give he a hint?

Doomwookie · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 3:56 am Post subject:

You need to give the raw device as a drive in vmware. Like /dev/hda1 if that is your ntfs partition.
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Carlo · Developer Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 3356

Yes, this works. What's really tricky is getting Windows to dual boot native/vm. There is some information available in the VMware Knowledge Base, but it's not officially supported.

Carlo
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rav · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Nov 2003 Posts: 114

Ok, i finaly got it to work, only to screw up the winxp hardware profile. No big deal realy, i'll probably just cheat windows activation again, by jumping back to an image. Is there anyway to prevent vmware from being able to write to the hd, or at least to trick windowsxp? Personly Id rather be using wine, but it just doesnt cut it for 98% of the programs.

Carlo · Developer Joined: 12 Aug 2002 Posts: 3356

I use two hardware profiles, switching between them via boot.ini. About the activation problem: If you have access to a corp. version, there is no activation problem.

Carlo
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Doomwookie · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2003 10:49 pm Post subject:

There is the alternative of installing XP in a virtual machine and accessing your raw partition as a secondary drive.
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Gentoo/Windows MCE Dualboot

oldsk00l · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 18 Oct 2003 Posts: 140

Actually what really simplified things was to boot into XP, create a new hardware profile.

What I did in vmware was to set it up to use the whole disk, and when VMware loads it loads Grub, I pick XP, and use my Linux hardware profile (you can name it whatever you want) and this allows WinXP to have the correct hardware settings available when you load it natively, and to have it use the VMware virtual machine profile.

It works out quite nicely. I am also running a version of XP that has been stripped of its WPA functionality....

przeuj · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:40 pm Post subject: