VMWARE question

terra25 · n00b Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 36

With VMWARE you have to install a new operating system or you can reference an allready available operating system in the PC.
Example I have a partion with Windows XP and Linux Gentoo, with this VMWARE can be able to see my Windows XP partition or I have to install a new one inside Linux Gentoo.

pgf · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:26 pm Post subject:

A new virtual machine is just like a new "real iron" machine: you need to install an OS on it. I cannot think of a way to "reference" an already-installed instance of Windows from a new VM. I can think of a couple of ways to try it for a UN*X-based instance, though, but I don't know if they wold work. The safest way for any OS would be a clone of the previously installed instance, so I suppose you could do this for Windows using Ghost or something similar. Whatever you do, the new virtual machine needs to be instantiated with an OS and boot record.

pgf · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 4:30 pm Post subject: Re: VMWARE question

RoundsToZero · Guru Joined: 17 Nov 2003 Posts: 478 Location: New York, NY

Actually you can assign a real physical disk/partition to a VM. It means you have to run VMware as root though because it needs to be able to access /dev/hdX# directly. Also, it's not recommended, but it's possible

.

I think to do it you just create a VM, then go like you were going to add a new disk. Except it should ask you at some point or you should see an option to link to an existing disk. I'll take a look when I get home.

yuza · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:24 pm Post subject:

Yes you can do it without too much hassle. Have a look here for instructions...
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/disks_dualmult_ws.html

It's actually easier than it looks from that document.
Also you don't need to be root, you just need to be in the disk group, which is the group that owns the /dev/hdX files.
Remember that, if you configure the vm to use just some physical partitions (i. e. not the whole disk), your boot partition must be among them for grub to work