Specifications

CHAPTER 6 Using Disks in a Virtual Machine
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Caution: Corruption is possible if you allow the virtual machine to modify a
partition that is simultaneously mounted under Windows. Since the virtual
machine and guest operating system access a physical disk partition while the
host continues to run Windows, it is critical that you not allow the virtual
machine to modify any partition mounted by the host or in use by another
virtual machine. To safeguard against this problem, be sure the physical disk
partition you use for the virtual machine is not in use by the host.
Use Disk Management (Start > Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools
> Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management). Select the partition
you want to unmap, then choose Action > All Tasks > Change Drive Letter and
Path. Click the Remove button.
7. Use the virtual machine settings editor (VM > Settings) if you want to change
any configuration options from the wizard defaults — for example, to change
the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine.
8. At this point you are ready to begin installing the guest operating system onto
the physical disk you configured for the virtual machine. For more details, read
the installation notes for various guest operating systems in the VMware Guest
Operating System Installation Guide, available from the VMware Web site or from
the Help menu.
Configuring a Linux Host
1. Identify the raw partition on which the guest operating system will be installed.
Check the guest operating system documentation regarding the type of
partition on which the operating system can be installed. For example, operating
systems like DOS, Windows 95 and Windows 98 must be installed on the first
primary partition while others, like Linux, can be installed on a primary or
extended partition on any part of the drive.
Identify an appropriate raw partition or disk for the guest operating system to
use. Check that the raw partition is not mounted by the Linux host and not in
use by others. Also, be sure the raw partition or disk does not have data you will
need in the future; if it does, back up that data now.
2. Check the operating system partition mounts. Be sure the existing disk partitions
that you plan to use in the virtual machine are not mounted by Linux.
3. Set the device group membership or device ownership.
The master physical disk device or devices need to be readable and writable by
the user who runs GSX Server. On most distributions, the raw devices, such as
/dev/hda (IDE physical disk) and /dev/sdb (SCSI physical disk) belong to