Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

ravisghosh · 2007-03-11 12:11:43

I found this great piece of instructions regarding running physical windows partition in linux using vmware. Here is the link http://oopsilon.com/Running-a-Windows-P … -in-VMware. Its really simple enough to understand for a noob like me. But I found something which I could not understand. The author mentioned "If you have Windows on one hard disk and Linux on another, use the Windows disk in the command below, otherwise just use the disk device containing the Windows partition" and in his example, he used "parted /dev/hda" which is reccommended if windows is on one disk and linux on another. But the results from "unit s" command shows that he has windows and linux both on "hda" only. "Otherwise just use the disk device containing the Windows partition" means to me that if windows and linux is on same disk, then one should windows disk device, i.e., "hda1" and this is what he should have used in his example. This thing is confusing.

Here is what I got when I fired parted on /dev/sda and /dev/sda1 (windows disk)

[root@bluehead shantanu]# parted /dev/sda
GNU Parted 1.8.2
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) unit s 
(parted) print 
Model: ATA SAMSUNG SV4002H (scsi) 
Disk /dev/sda: 78242975s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number   Start               End                Size               Type           File system    Flags
1              63s                 10233404s    10233342s    primary       fat32              boot 
2              10233405s     78236549s    68003145s    extended                           lba 
5              10233468s     20225834s    9992367s      logical        fat32               lba 
6              20225898s     24434864s    4208967s      logical        linux-swap 
7              24434928s     37126214s    12691287s    logical        ext3 
8              37126278s     64774079s     27647802s    logical        ext3 
9               64774143s     78236549s    13462407s    logical        fat32 

_________________________


[root@bluehead shantanu]# parted /dev/sda1
GNU Parted 1.8.2
Using /dev/sda1
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands. 
(parted) unit s 
(parted) print 
Model: Unknown (unknown)
Disk /dev/sda1: 10233341s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B 
Partition Table: loop

Number    Start     End                 Size                File system     Flags
1               0s         10233341s     10233342s     fat32

So, we have 2 sets of values ( 10233341s and 78242975s, and other values), Could anyone please suggest which one to use.

As you could see I have got 7 partitions out of which partition 1 is windows' C and partition 5 and 9 (fat32) are used for common data (music, etc) used by both linux and windows. Will it be possible to access these partitions simultaneously from native linux and virtual windows? Will that cause any damage?

Another thing is that I use windows boot menu to go to grub and then boot linux so as to keep mbr unaffected. Will that affect virtual machine configuration in anyway. I have heard that booting into the same partition by 2 OS's will destroy the partition. Any thought on that.

iBertus · 2007-03-11 18:14:41

I don't think running a physical Windows install from within VMWare will work with Windows XP. I could be mistaken but the virtual hardware is not going to match the installed hardware and the WPA stuff will lock you out pretty quick.

Dieter@be · 2007-03-11 18:31:41

iBertus wrote:

I don't think running a physical Windows install from within VMWare will work with Windows XP. I could be mistaken but the virtual hardware is not going to match the installed hardware and the WPA stuff will lock you out pretty quick.

that's why you first have to boot into windows, create a new hardware profile, and use that when booting

Bob Day · 2007-03-12 09:02:49

[root@B0310_01 ronald]# parted /dev/sda1
GNU Parted 1.8.2
Using /dev/sda1
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) unit s                                                           
(parted) print                                                            
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

I think you can just use /dev/sda since /dev/sda1 does not give any info for me.

I'm very interested to see if you can get this to work

ravisghosh · 2007-03-12 13:28:45

parted /dev/sda gives info for the whole disk whereas /dev/sda1 gives info for sda1 only. Probably, you dont have any device such as sda1. I just dont want to make a mistake since it will ruin my partition.

Bob Day · 2007-03-12 13:50:35

I have /dev/sda1, I have Windows XP installed on it.
You won't ruin anything, with parted you only look up some information about your disk.

ravisghosh · 2007-03-13 01:15:09

I know I wont ruit anything with parted but I may damage my disk doing wrong things with vmware, etc.

Bob Day · 2007-03-13 15:04:04

ok, I tried it and it worked out perfectly for me.
The only thing missing in the tutorial is that I had to add myself to the usergroup disk.

RaisedFist · 2007-03-13 15:51:46

Bob Day wrote:

ok, I tried it and it worked out perfectly for me.
The only thing missing in the tutorial is that I had to add myself to the usergroup disk.

So it works... but how good does it work? Is it useable? For example I'd like to try this thing for using photoshop within the virtual windows machine.

Dieter@be · 2007-03-13 16:08:57

Can any of you guys check what changes on the filesystem when you add a new hardwareprofile?
My windows doesn't start correctly, because something stupid probably, so I would like to add a hardwareprofile to the windows from out of linux, and then booting it in vmware.

Bob Day · 2007-03-13 20:08:12

RaisedFist wrote:

Bob Day wrote:
...
So it works... but how good does it work? Is it useable? For example I'd like to try this thing for using photoshop within the virtual windows machine.

It depends on the amount of memory you assign to vmware. With the 780MB I assigned it works quit fast.
How it is with photoshop I do not know yet.

Purch · 2007-03-14 10:49:15

I did not even think about using vmware like this, but this is brilliant.

I did as told in the guide, but the virtual machine cannot start. It crashes to a permission problem while reading WindowsXP.vmdk. I dont have logs now, but I can get them later. The file permissions are same as for the other virtual XP with 10G virtual partition. Did I miss something?

edit: vmware does not support sata raw disks to boot http://www.vmware.com/community/thread. … eID=585172

Last edited by Purch (2007-03-14 11:13:57)

ravisghosh · 2007-03-15 07:32:29

@bob, which values did u use, the one for the whole disk or the windows partition only??

Bob Day · 2007-03-15 07:57:18

ravisghosh wrote:

@bob, which values did u use, the one for the whole disk or the windows partition only??

The whole disk

ravisghosh · 2007-03-16 14:54:11

@Bob, Do u have 2 separate disks for linux and windows or separate partitions like I have.

Bob Day · 2007-03-16 14:57:55

ravisghosh wrote:

@Bob, Do u have 2 separate disks for linux and windows or separate partitions like I have.

separate partitions like you have

ravisghosh · 2007-03-17 02:15:00

@bob, could u please make the memory allocation thing a bit clear. I mean what portion of memory you assigned to it. I have 256 mb ram.

Bob Day · 2007-03-17 09:21:57

while running windows in vmplayer, you can access a memory allocate slider in vmplayer. It gives you a recommended value. I just that one.

Purch · 2007-03-17 09:40:13

I was looking solution to SATA disk problem. It looks like that if you change from bios that sata disks are identified as ide disks. Then you can use hard disk mount system.

RaisedFist · 2007-03-18 07:53:15

So... I tried this morning to boot my windows partition using all the info in this thread. This is what I get:

Invalid BOOT.INI file
Booting from C:\Windows\
NTDETECT failed

and vmplayer enters an infinite loop with this

Any hints?

murkus · 2007-03-18 15:12:28

I have a different problem relating to these instructions.

when starting up the vmplayer I get following error

Error while opening virtual machine winxp.vmdk: File "/home/murkus/vmware/winxp.vmdk" line 8: Syntax error.
.

here's my files: winxp.mbr winxp.vmdk winxp.vmx

cat winxp.vmdk

# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=9428f535
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description
RW 63 FLAT "winxp.mbr" 0
RW 120103136 FLAT "/dev/hdb" 63

# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.toolsVersion = "6530"
ddb.adapterType = "ide"
ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"
ddb.geometry.heads = "255"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "7476"

cat winxp.vmx

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "4"

uuid.location = "56 4d 56 4a 7b d7 4c 30-f5 80 d6 8b c4 59 aa eb"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 56 4a 7b d7 4c 30-f5 80 d6 8b c4 59 aa eb"

uuid.action = "create"
checkpoint.vmState = ""

displayName = "Windows XP Professional"
annotation = ""
guestinfo.vmware.product.long = ""
guestinfo.vmware.product.url = ""

guestOS = "winxppro"
numvcpus = "1"
memsize = "320"
paevm = "FALSE"
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "TRUE"
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"

MemTrimRate = "-1"

nvram = "WindowsXP.nvram"

mks.enable3d = "FALSE"
vmmouse.present = "FALSE"
vmmouse.fileName = "auto detect"

tools.syncTime = "TRUE"
tools.remindinstall = "FALSE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "FALSE"
isolation.tools.copy.enable = "TRUE"
isolation.tools.paste.enabled = "TRUE"
gui.restricted = "FALSE"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.connectionType = "nat"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:59:aa:eb"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

usb.present = "TRUE"
usb.generic.autoconnect = "TRUE"

sound.present = "TRUE"
sound.virtualdev = "sb16"

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "winxp.vmdk"
ide0:0.mode = "independent-persistent"
ide0:0.deviceType = "rawDisk"
ide0:0.redo = ""
ide0:0.writeThrough = "FALSE"
ide0:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "/dev/cdrom"
ide1:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"
ide1:0.writeThrough = "FALSE"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

floppy0.present = "TRUE"
floppy0.fileName = "/dev/fd0"
floppy0.startConnected = "TRUE"

serial0.present = "FALSE"
serial1.present = "FALSE"
parallel0.present = "FALSE"

I can't see any difference to the instructions given above..

.murkus

ravisghosh · 2007-03-18 21:46:18

Help, Help, Help..

Could anyone please upload the windows.iso file somewhere in rapidshare, etc., and post the url or else send me as an attachment at ravisghosh@gmail.com. I'm a bandwidth-poor guy. Please help me out.

ravisghosh · 2007-03-18 21:56:37

someone has already done that favor. here is the link http://www.advicesource.org/ubuntu/files/windows.rar

ravisghosh · 2007-03-18 22:00:23

Another query about hard disk accessing.

Suppose i have windows in sda1 (fat32), data in sda2 (fat32), and linux (ext3) sda3. I install vmware in sda3 with linux and run windows on sda1 from it. Now, if I access data in sda2 simultaneously from hda1 (virtual windows) and hda3 (linux), will it cause any damage or trouble?

ravisghosh · 2007-03-18 22:55:18

After setting up all the things mentioned, I had put WindowsXP.mbr, WindowsXP.vmdk, and WindowsXP.vmx files in my home directory as mentioned in another post http://www.advicesource.org/ubuntu/Run_ … layer.html. Then I tried to run VMWare by double clicking or hitting enter on WindowsXP.vms file and also trying to run VMware Player from xfce4 menu, but nothing starts up. On doing "vmware" (and "sudo vmware" too) in console, it gives "command not found". I installed VMware Player from AUR. Please suggest something guys.

Last edited by ravisghosh (2007-03-18 23:04:37)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-11 12:11:43

Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#2 2007-03-11 18:14:41

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#3 2007-03-11 18:31:41

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#4 2007-03-12 09:02:49

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#5 2007-03-12 13:28:45

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#6 2007-03-12 13:50:35

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#7 2007-03-13 01:15:09

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#8 2007-03-13 15:04:04

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#9 2007-03-13 15:51:46

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#10 2007-03-13 16:08:57

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#11 2007-03-13 20:08:12

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#12 2007-03-14 10:49:15

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#13 2007-03-15 07:32:29

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#14 2007-03-15 07:57:18

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#15 2007-03-16 14:54:11

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#16 2007-03-16 14:57:55

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#17 2007-03-17 02:15:00

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#18 2007-03-17 09:21:57

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#19 2007-03-17 09:40:13

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#20 2007-03-18 07:53:15

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#21 2007-03-18 15:12:28

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#22 2007-03-18 21:46:18

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#23 2007-03-18 21:56:37

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#24 2007-03-18 22:00:23

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

#25 2007-03-18 22:55:18

Re: Running a Windows Partition in VMWare Without Installing Windows Again

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