Specifications

CHAPTER 6 Using Disks in a Virtual Machine
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Use the New Virtual Machine Wizard or the VMware Management Interface to
configure GSX Server to use existing physical disk partitions. The wizard guides you
though creating a configuration for a new virtual machine including configuring the
physical disk description files. Typically, you rerun the wizard to create a separate
configuration for each guest operating system installed on a raw partition.
If a boot manager is installed on the computer system, the boot manager runs inside
the virtual machine and presents you with the choice of guest operating systems to
run. You must manually choose the guest operating system that this configuration
was intended to run.
Running Windows Guests on Windows Hosts with FAT File Systems
There is a potential problem with GSX Server on Windows hosts when you boot an
operating system from an existing partition. If the Windows host’s partition uses a FAT
file system, the guest operating system (for example, Windows 98 or Windows 95)
sees this partition at boot time and attempts to fix the file system on that partition.
This causes serious problems, because the host operating system is actively using that
partition.
If you use an advanced boot manager such as BootMagic (PowerQuest) or System
Commander (V Communications), it solves this problem by changing the partition
type to “unknown.” If you are already using such an advanced boot manager to dual
boot, the boot manager’s partition marking scheme works fine with GSX Server.
However, if you are not using an advanced boot manager for dual booting, the
configuration process described below hides partitions that do not belong to the
guest operating system. When physical disk partition hiding is enabled, all read-only
partitions are mapped to “unknown.” Also, all updates to the master boot record are
intercepted and not written to the actual master boot record.
Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Dynamic Disks
If your host is running Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 and is
using dynamic disks, see Do Not Use Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows
Server 2003 Dynamic Disks as Physical Disks on page 213.
Using the LILO Boot Loader
If you are using the LILO boot loader and try to boot a virtual machine from an existing
raw partition, you may see L 01 01 01 01 01 01 … instead of a LILO:
prompt. This can happen regardless of the host operating system. As part of booting a
physical PC or a virtual machine, the BIOS passes control to code located in the master
boot record (MBR) of the boot device. LILO begins running from the MBR, and in order
to finish running correctly, it needs access to the native Linux partition where the rest