# [HOWTO] VMWare Workstation raw disk with WinXP guest

## 10drill

VMWare Workstation raw disk with WinXP guest

Having spent most of yesterday getting this to work, I thought I'd share the steps involved. There is scattered information on this in these forums and on the VMWare forums, but it took a while to put it all together and make it work. This guide is what worked for me, your mileage may vary. 

Required:

Working dual boot Gentoo/WinXP installation

Working Linux installation of VMWare Workstation 4.5.2

Probably will only work with IDE hardware

Why do this?

I set this up on a laptop with a 10GB NTFS partition loaded with WinXP pro, with the rest of the 40GB disk used for Gentoo. I can successfully dual boot, but rarely do as I'm sort of allergic to Windows. However, I do need a few things in Windows from time to time, so I have had a small XP installation on a virtual disk which has worked fine, but uses a few GBs of space on my rapidly filling HDD. Using the existing 10GB XP install was the logical solution.

Results:

Well, it works! I can now successfully run WinXP from within Gentoo using VMWare, or boot natively into WinXP upon reboot. Besides saving space, I am very impressed with the speed increase. Booting WinXP from the raw disk is MUCH faster than from the virtual disk. Opening applications is MUCH faster. 

For example, Photoshop 7 load times:

Virtual disk: 21 seconds

Raw disk: 10 seconds

Drawbacks:

Suspending the OS is not advised with raw disk use. Snapshots won't really work. Basically you lose the ability to undo things like you could with a virtual disk.

Warning:

You really could mess something up on your computer playing with this. VMWare says so, and it is certainly possible.

VMWare documentation:

Configuring a Dual-Boot Computer for Use with a Virtual Machine

Many users install VMware Workstation on a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer so they can run one or more of the existing operating systems in a virtual machine. If you are doing this, you may want to use the existing installation of an operating system rather than reinstall it in a virtual machine.

More VMWare documentation:

Setting Up Hardware Profiles in Virtual Machines

"Certain operating systems use hardware profiles to load the appropriate drivers for a given set of hardware devices. If you have a dual-boot system and want to use a virtual machine to boot a previously installed operating system from an existing partition, you must set up "physical" and "virtual" hardware profiles."

Steps:

1.

Make hardware profile in XP as described in VMWare docs above...

2.

```
/sbin/hdparm -g /dev/hda
```

With 2.6.x kernel the wrong disk geometry (65535/16/63 for my disk) is shown. Booting with 2.4.x kernel (Knoppix with 2.4.x for me because I don't have 2.4 kernel anymore) shows correct geometry (4864/255/63 for my disk). I added: hda=4864,255,63 to kernel args in grub.conf. So it looks like this:

grub.conf

```
title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.8-r10 (fb)

root (hd0,1)

kernel /kernel-2.6.8-gentoo-r10 root=/dev/hda4 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x31A acpi=force hda=4864,255,63
```

When I tried before making these changes upon booting WinXP in VMWare it would stop at grub, with "Error 17".

3.

I'm sure there are many solutions and ways to fix this...but I did it the easy way and ran vmware with sudo. As a normal user VMWare can't access the raw disk (/dev/hda for me). 

```
sudo vmware
```

Make new machine using raw/physical disk in VMWare.

IMPORTANT! YOU MUST select use whole disk, not the partition as you would think. When I tried that, I got the same grub error 17.

My cdrom didn't work at fist for some reason in XP, so I set cdrom in VMWare to use iso image at /opt/vmware/lib/isoimages/windows.iso so I could install VMWare tools in XP. I suggest doing this to make sure you get VMWare tools intalled upon first boot. 

4.

Boot virtual machine, BE SURE to boot into XP and not linux in grub. You might want to increase your timeout in grub.conf?

Select your "virtual" profile from the XP hardware profile selection menu.

click cancel for installing any new hardware that is found.

Install VMware tools (virtual cdrom drive)

Shutdown XP

set cdrom to /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 (well, that is what I did and now it works)

5. 

Start your VMWare XP, see if it works. Reboot your computer and see if you can still natively boot into XP. If so, congratulations! 

Possible issues:

Windows XP activation. Not sure about this...I used the "corporate edition" which requires no activation.

----------

## MaxDamage

 *10drill wrote:*   

> Make new machine using raw/physical disk in VMWare.
> 
> IMPORTANT! YOU MUST select use whole disk, not the partition as you would think. When I tried that, I got the same grub error 17.

 

That's because grub needs to access the boot partition at start-up. Having a /boot partition and a / partition allows you to mantain / not accesed by vmware. All the other partitions can be de-selected too, and added after as a "network-folder" in the vmware options.

----------

## nsahoo

I get a screen with 

```

L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 ...

```

At the boot and it freezes after that. I suppose it's because, it can't access my /boot folder. I don't have a separate /boot partition, it's in the same partition as my linux installation. 

I have tried starting as root and as the regular user. The regular user is in the "disk" group, so that it can have access to the /dev/hd* devices. 

Any idea as to what I can do to make it work?

----------

## Um_Help

i have bad luck with doing raw disk in vmware. It has corrupted manya drive. I dont recommend it for important data and such. Cool idea to just have the OS on the partition, it wouldnt really matter if it got corrupt i mean it takes like 9 mins to install windows.  :Razz: 

----------

## MaxDamage

 *Um_Help wrote:*   

> i have bad luck with doing raw disk in vmware. It has corrupted manya drive. I dont recommend it for important data and such. Cool idea to just have the OS on the partition, it wouldnt really matter if it got corrupt i mean it takes like 9 mins to install windows. 

 

Always be sure of unmounting in Gentoo the partitions Windows through vmware is going to access. Or at least mount them RO. If not, the data could get corrupted, or at least changes would be lost.

----------

## 10drill

 *Quote:*   

> Any idea as to what I can do to make it work?

 I never ran into an error as you described so I have no advice. Try searching the VMWare forums?

----------

## pestilence

I tryed to access my windows partition as a raw disk through vmware but i get the activation screen.....i can't activate windows (network fails?) through network...I tryed bridged through my works lan (using a proxy) and also tryed Nat through a pppd connection from my home, but neither seems to work.

----------

## dwardo

Hello

I have tried what you described and I get a blue screen with:

A message about probable virus on drive or uninstall drive and controller from windows.

***STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF9C2E640,0xC0000034,0x00000000)

Is ther a way to empty (remove all hardware) the virtual hardware profile in XP (I created it by copying the phisical one...)

Thanks for your help

[/img]

----------

## 10drill

 *Quote:*   

> i can't activate windows (network fails?) through network

 Did you have VMWare networking working correctly with a virtual XP machine? If so you should be able to use the same networking configuration, which is set up by running the /opt/vmware/bin/vmware-config.pl scripts. I use bridged networking and it works fine...and I did say activation could be an issue with this! If you figure it out, let us know.

----------

## 10drill

 *Quote:*   

> A message about probable virus on drive or uninstall drive and controller from windows.
> 
> ***STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF9C2E640,0xC0000034,0x00000000) 

 I think you will find more info on this in the VMWare forums, for example check this thread and this one from MS. Post your solution if you get it working!

----------

## pestilence

 *dwardo wrote:*   

> Hello
> 
> I have tried what you described and I get a blue screen with:
> 
> A message about probable virus on drive or uninstall drive and controller from windows.
> ...

 

This is usually a problem with the IDE controller, boot into your vmware hardware profile of windows (normal not through vmware) and change the IDE controler as described in the vmware site, reboot into Linux and load windows through vmware and you should be fine.

----------

## Shemite_Dog

I had to apply the registry patch provided here      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082, then everything worked just fine.

----------

## dwardo

Thanks Shemite_dog that did it.  :Very Happy: 

Now All I need is to get the briged network working and then activate XP...

If Anyone has any tips I'll take them for now I'm going through all I can find in the forum.

Thanks again.

----------

## pestilence

 *dwardo wrote:*   

> Thanks Shemite_dog that did it. 
> 
> Now All I need is to get the briged network working and then activate XP...
> 
> If Anyone has any tips I'll take them for now I'm going through all I can find in the forum.
> ...

 

You don't need to tweak anything for networking to work under vmware, just choose the appropriate networking option and you should be fine, if you are using an ethernet network then choose bridged, if you use a Dialup / ISDN choose nat and it should play straight forward.

One remark though, i chose vmxnet instead of vlance (vlance would not work on my system / configuration).

----------

## dwardo

Hy I've got 2 more questions

Vmware init script fails In "Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0"

This seems to be due to the fact that /dev/vmnet0 is not present upon vmware_start_bridge function call. However it appears a few seconds later in /dev but when I start vmware it tells me bridged networking not activated... 

Has anyone had this problem, and a solution other then duplicating the call to vmware_start_bridge (a bit brutal, but it activates the bridge after the /dev/vmnet0 has appeared) and erasing the not_configured file every time ???

Second, at each boot XP tells me that I have to activate, yet when I try it says I'm already activated... Ever had this happen ??? The number of days for activation are decreasing...

Thanks again.

----------

## Lawless

Hello, 

I've found this thread which really helped me with my vmware installation (I had that problem with the wrong hdd geometry)

So now my native windows installation also runs within vmware but windows wants to be activated everytime I change between vmware and native boot. I've activated with both hardware profiles hoping that windows would be smart enough but the activation screen appeared again.

Has anyone solved that problem?

I do not have a corporate edition...

----------

## mvc

I've found that editing the .vmdk file and putting the correct disk geometry in lines starting with "geometry" works without passing hda option to the kernel.

Why is hdparm reporting the wrong values? I used to tweak the hd performance as suggested in some gentoo installation how-to. I hope it is doing the right thing.

----------

## 10drill

 *mvc wrote:*   

> I've found that editing the .vmdk file and putting the correct disk geometry in lines starting with "geometry" works without passing hda option to the kernel.

 Great tip, thanks.

----------

## prolific

i just setup a vmware physical disk installation ....

i didn't have to find the geometry of the disk or anything like that ... all i had to do was to change the owner of /dev/hda to disk and add myself to the disk group  :Smile: 

----------

## 10drill

 *Quote:*   

> i didn't have to find the geometry of the disk or anything like that 

 What kernel are you running?

----------

## mvc

When I first installed vmware I was also able to run it without specifying the hd geometry. Then one day, apparently with no reason, it stopped working and I had to set the geometry.

Marco

----------

## TrainedChimp

 *mvc wrote:*   

> I've found that editing the .vmdk file and putting the correct disk geometry in lines starting with "geometry" works without passing hda option to the kernel.

 

I tried doing that sometime ago and was never able to get that to work nor was I able to pass the geometry to the kernel  using Grub. What I wound up doing instead was creating a virtual boot floppy. Just incase it helps someone else see: http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?forumID=19&threadID=6282&messageID=42574#42574

----------

## ichief

 *Shemite_Dog wrote:*   

> I had to apply the registry patch provided here      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082, then everything worked just fine.

 

I've recently set-up a similar configuration with a SATA drive as the Windows drive.  For those of you who may have had as much trouble as I did getting this to work, here's a tip: use the link above, but instead of adding the registry entries as specified on that page, add an entry based on the SATA / IDE driver you need for Windows to be able to boot from the drive.  You can find the PCI string in the *.inf file of the device you are trying to add.

For example, to get the VMWare SCSI driver loaded at startup, add the following registry entry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#ven_104b&dev_1040]

"ClassGUID"="{4D36E97B-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"

"Service"="vmscsi"

Also make sure that the VMWare SCSI driver is already present in your Windows/System32/drivers folder...you can download this driver from http://www.vmware.com/download/downloadscsi.html, and use WinImage to extract the driver from the *.flp file.

Hope this helps!  (I played around with sysprep and had to do multiple repair installs until I figured out that the above registry entry was all I needed, so I think this will prove useful for those of you interested in dual-booting a current Windows partition under VMWare in Linux.)

----------

## m00nxaild

hi all,

First of all, thank you all for your help. It's been useful to me.

I'm running gentoo with kernel 2.6 as the host, and win xp as the vmware 4.5.2 guest, on my asus laptop wich has an hdd ide.

I followed the steps and everything went ok.

Now I boot vmware winxp guest, and I could not pass the winxp login. No mouse, no keyboard.

I got back into win and configured auto-logon.

I'm still without mouse and keyboard, but I see that winxp detects, and wants to install

"BusLogic MultiMaster PCI SCSI Host Adapter".

Like i said, my hdd is IDE.. I have no ideia why vmware would need scsi.

Anyway, I went to vmware, downloaded the scsi driver, extracted the .flp, installed the .inf into the registry.

I also tried to do your step "ichief", but everything was in it's right place. the keys in registry, and the .sys in ../system32/drivers.

Am I missing out something ?

I tried different mouse settings in the virtual machine of winxp, but with no success.

It's been almost 2 days of testing and booting.. I feel like I'm almost there..

Please help. Thanks

----------

## ichief

m00nxaild,

The mouse and keyboard drivers under VMWare are just based on basic PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard drivers.  What type of drivers are you using normally (usb or ps2, custom or generic drivers)?  If you created a seperate hardware profile for VMWare and "Real" Windows, boot into "Real" Windows using your VMWare hardware profile, uninstall the mouse/keyboard drivers, and reboot into Windows from VMWare.

As far as I know, Windows does not need the SCSI drivers for VMWare unless your CD/DVD drives or zip drive is going through ide-scsi emulation.  If they are recognized as SCSI in linux, then they might be loading up as SCSI under VMWare/Windows.

Finally, you could try booting into Safe Mode through VMWare...this should redetect your devices and utilize only basic drivers.

----------

## m00nxaild

Hi, thanks for your fast answer.

I'm using "ImPS/2" mouse and /dev/input/mice in xorg.conf

for the keyboard I'm using "kbd" and "pc105".

In vmware, the mouse is set do "default", but I also tried PS/2... and /dev/input/mice, with no success.

In win I made a copy of my profile, and I didn't uninstalled the mouse & keyboard drivers, because in the VMWare's site it said that uninstalling drivers is only necessary for NT.

Anyway, I just uninstalled them right now, booted winxp from within vmware, and still no luck  :Crying or Very sad: 

oh, i haven't said, but I also tried booting in safe mode from within vmware, still no mouse nor keybd.

Any ideas?

Thank you very much

P.S: my mouse is usb (and there is also a touchpad, which also doesn't work)

----------

## sdpeterson

When attempting to boot windows from a physical disk in a virtual machine I get a "NTLDR is missing" error. This error occurs after selecting Windows XP from the GRUB menu. I have searched the VMWare forums and found several people with the same issue. I'm curious how posters to this thread have circumvented this error (or if they've even encountered it). My hard drive is partitioned as follows:

hda1 - FAT32 Windows

hda2 - boot

hda3 - swap

hda4 - Linux

I encountered this error while following the outline presented by 10drill. Any help is appreciated.

-Sean

----------

## amiatrome

I loaded vmware with a boot disk image to bypass the NTLDR error.

My disk image is on another box right now and I cant find the original site I downloaded it from. But hey, there's always google.  :Smile: 

----------

## xef

I followed this howto and nowi have my vmware working, and it's great! I also managed to get my wireless to get my wireless card to work in linux the last weekend, now i almost never need to reboot on windows!  :Smile: 

Just had a problem in the guest windows, sometimes the menu characters disappeared, but disabling the graphic card aceleration solved the problem.

----------

## MaxDamage

This page could be of interest when playing with vmware and window$:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082/

----------

## lucidthoughts

hello,

upon trying this method which is very appealing to me,

once i try booting, i get a grub error 18 and it halts at that.

i am using a sata drive.

my grub.conf is:

```
default 0

timeout 30

title=gentoo-2.6.11

root (hd0,5)

kernel /kernel-2.6.11-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/sda8

title=gentoo-2.6.10

root (hd0,5)

kernel /kernel-2.6.10-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/sda8

title=windowsXp

rootnoverify (hd0,0)

makeactive

chainloader +1

```

and fdisk yields the following:

```

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sda1   *           1        7649    61440561    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda2            7650       19451    94799565    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)

/dev/sda5            7650       15298    61440561    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda6           15299       15303       40131   83  Linux

/dev/sda7           15304       15553     2008093+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda8           15554       19451    31310653+  83  Linux

```

any help is greatly appreciated!

----------

## onlymrme

I've managed to get Native XP booting inside my Gentoo box as well, mostly using advice from this thread.

I have copied (renamed) ntosknl.exe and hal.dll files from a true Vmware install of XP into the system32 directory of my native install, and use the /KERNEL and /HAL flags in the boot.ini in order to specify which files to use. It seems to work though.

One major gotcha for me:

Ran into an activation problem. When I booted into Vmware, I got a "Do  you want to activate XP" dialog. When I clicked "yes", I was told that XP was already activated and was thrown back to the login screen. There is no way to change your key under SP1. Really. There isn't. I re-installed XP with our corporate key, instead of the one with the laptop, and it works now.

So in order to boot Windows now, I have 3 menus:

1. Grub asking XP or Linux

2. Windows boot.ini asking VMware or native kernel/hal

3. Windows asking VMware or native hardware profile

Still it works now, so I'm happy!

 :Very Happy: 

Cheers

----------

## MaxDamage

 *onlymrme wrote:*   

> So in order to boot Windows now, I have 3 menus:
> 
> 1. Grub asking XP or Linux
> 
> 2. Windows boot.ini asking VMware or native kernel/hal
> ...

 

That's the way I have it configured, too  :Wink:   So don't worry about it, it's normal. Cheers.

----------

## tecknojunky

anyone managed to run vmware as a normal user and access raw disks?  It seems adding yourself to the disk group is insuficient  :Sad: 

----------

## dwardo

Hi all 

If you've followed this topic from the start you will remember that I had Vmware up and running from my raw disks on a multiboot install...

Since then my hard Drive decided to die on me.

So I bought a new Hard Drive (160Go vs 80Go for the dead one) reinstalled Windows and Gentoo and Thought I would have Vmware running quickly since with this threads help the previous instalation had been a breeze...

Well when I start Vmware, I get the grub menu, I select my Windows XP entry and then Vmware just hangs leaving this message on the screen:

title Windows XP

rootnoverify (hd0,0)

makeactive

chainloader +1

This is, as you've obviously recognized it, the Windows part of my grub.conf file...  The Windows partition is hda1 of course...

I get no error messages or blue screens... 

Windows does boot without problem on the hardware (i.e. physicaly)

My Gentoo is the exact same as before (Yeah I had backups....) so I doubt its disk acces or whatever else gentoo configuration problems...

I have the same problem i f Igive the entire disk to vmware or just the boot and windows partiitions.

So If anyone has had this problem or has a remark or possible solution thanks for your   :Idea: 

----------

## lostboy1

 *dwardo wrote:*   

> So If anyone has had this problem or has a remark or possible solution thanks for your  

 

I have been running a dual boot system on my laptop for over a year now, and just decided to see if I can get my WinXP native partition to boot in Gentoo with VMWare. I am having the same problem where grub tries to boot and just hangs. The processor goes to 100% utilization and there is a fair amount of disk access, but nothing seems to happen.

I can reboot into native windows, and that works fine, I also have a vm image of windows XP using a virtual disk which works fine as well. I am wondering if there is something with the newer version of kernel or vmware.

----------

## 2aet21sc

Hi everybody!

I have set up a second hardware profile, copied the drivers from vmware to /system32/drivers, applied the microsoft reg-patch and the one that ichief offered, but still the same error... (STOP 0x0000007B)

What did i miss???

greets

----------

## 2aet21sc

Sorry, forgot to say that i have a S-ATA disk...

Pleeeaaase Help!

----------

## dwardo

I've solved my problem so I hope this will help others...

I was looking for CHS disk geometry problems as this comes up often...

My disk was a Maxtor 160 Gig with LBA=320173056 on /dev/hda

so translated in CHS:

On booting the disk was recognized as: 19929/255/63 but that failed and sfdisk said that my partition did not end on cylinder boundaries

by the way 19929*255*63=320159385 which is not right given my lba...

317632/16/63 is a perfect fit for 320173056

i added hda=317632,16,63 to grub boot command

still a no go... This time I gt a "Corrupt processor error..." something like that

Finaly since sfdisk was still complaining about my partitions not ending on cylinder boundaries I tested my partitions with testdisk...

>> testdisk /list 

TestDisk 5.9-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, August 2005

Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>

http://www.cgsecurity.org

Please wait...

Disk /dev/hda - CHS 317632 16 63 - 156334 MB, sector size=512

Disk /dev/hdc - CHS 22 255 63 - 688 MB, sector size=2048

Disk /dev/hdd - CHS 20 255 63 - 624 MB, sector size=2048

Disk /dev/hda - CHS 317632 16 63 - 156334 MB

     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

check_NTFS: Incorrect number of heads/cylinder 240 (NTFS) != 16 (HD)  <---- This line was of interest

 1 * HPFS - NTFS              0   1  1 19395  14 63   19551042 [XP Pro]

check_NTFS: Incorrect number of heads/cylinder 240 (NTFS) != 16 (HD)

 2 P HPFS - NTFS          19395  15  1 38791  13 63   19551105 [DATA]

[SNIP...]

So next i tried : hda=21175,240,63

And there was light... vmware booted windows and sfdisk quit complaining abou my partitions...

21175*240*63=320166000  < 320173056 so I'm loosing some disk space

So now it works but I think I also know why my CHS was F*** Up from the start...

The disk was /dev/hdb when I partitioned it and did the install on it...

I've found on the web that some people with 2 exact same disks on /dev/hda and /dev/hdb do not have the same geometry detected by linux on boot...

hda had H=255 and hdb had H=240... This sems to be exactly what happened to me...

as hdb 240 and once all was installed on the disk i moved it to hda where upon boot it was detected as 255 --> hence my problems...

So next time I buy a disk and partition it I will look at lba value on it then add the appropriate grub command so as to pass the correct geometry on boot...

Wrong geometr detection seems to be a known yet uncorrected bug in the 2.6 kernels...

Hope this helps others...

----------

## 2aet21sc

I got over my problem (bluescreen STOP) too  :Smile: 

The problem was, that linux said that my sata disks are scsi interface disks while windows took them as ide... So changing "lsilogic" or "buslogic" in the .vmdk file to "ide" solved the problem.

So now i can boot windows without bluescreen, but when the windows loginscreen finally loads up, i have no keyboard or mouse.

I have made a second hardware profile, but even if i delete the original drivers in the vmware-hardware profile in native windows i can't do anything...  :Sad: 

How can this be?

----------

## fuge

I've done step nr.2 but I've still got error 17  :Sad: 

----------

## infiniteedge

I'm trying to follow everything that's going on in this thread and I'm not doing a good job.  I have a pre-existing Windows installation on a separate hard drive that I would like to boot into using Gentoo.  Gentoo is installed on /dev/sda 1 2 and 3 and Windows is installed on /dev/sdb1.  I configured VMware in Gentoo to have a virtual machine with /dev/sdb as SCSI 0:1 and no other hard drives.  I booted natively into the Windows install, copied my current hardware profile, booted into the copy, and added the drivers and registry info in the microsoft support article linked to in this thread.  I then also added the registry entry and driver for the vmware scsi driver.  I then returned to Gentoo to boot a virtual machine of the physical windows install.  Windows began booting normally, prompted me to select a hardware profile (of which I chose the one I modified), and then promptly gave a blue screen and STOP message.

I'm guessing I need further modifications to my vmware hardware profile in Windows, but I don't know what they are.  Also, people are talking about the windows kernel and HAL... is all that going to be neccessary for me?

One last note, both the Gentoo hard drive and the Windows hard drive are actually SATA drives installed on a VIA SATA RAID controller (in a non-raid configuration).

Thanks!

----------

## korban

this worked for me:

http://www.vmware.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=292002

----------

## kilianh

 *onlymrme wrote:*   

> I've managed to get Native XP booting inside my Gentoo box as well, mostly using advice from this thread.
> 
> (...snip...)
> 
> Ran into an activation problem. When I booted into Vmware, I got a "Do  you want to activate XP" dialog. When I clicked "yes", I was told that XP was already activated and was thrown back to the login screen. There is no way to change your key under SP1. Really. There isn't. I re-installed XP with our corporate key, instead of the one with the laptop, and it works now.
> ...

 

Well, I ran into the same problem after I figured out how to get through the many BSOD's I encountered along the way. But I solved it differently (don't have corporate license either):

1) Get to Activate (yes/no) -> yes -> already activated -> thrown back to login screen cycle as above (virtual hw profile)

2) Somehow the second time I booted my vm into XP with the virtual hw profile (had to use "last know good configuration" because of an IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL BSOD) it attempted the activation for real (I think I also had networking working properly then using bridge and NAT for my guest)

3) Get to the step where it fails to register with the original XP product key because the hardware has "changed" significantly (including new BIOS) but you've already activated the product before

4) Reboot natively into XP, realising that with even with the physical hw profile it now wants to reactivate, failing in the same way as above

5) Very frustrated I then called M$ on my local toll-free number (the one that the dialog throws up), spoke to a consultant and told her that my XP wasn't working anymore cause I fiddled with VM's. So, I gave her the hardware key it spits out, she gave me a verification code and bingo, it was activated and working again as it did before

6) When I rebooted into Gentoo and started XP in vmware I noticed - to my surprise - that it no longer complains about activation

I now have a working installation in which both cases (physical boot with physical hw profile and vmware boot in Gentoo with virtual hw profile on raw disk) work perfectly without any hassles.

I know it sounds like a I-have-no-clue-what-I'm-doing-so-let's-fiddle-until-it-works approach, but it worked for me. Wondering if anyone can reproduce this...

Oh, and like the subject says, I'm on XP Home SP1 which came preinstalled on this laptop  :Evil or Very Mad:  Don't know what SP2's like. Using vmware-workstation-5.0, but vmplayer works just as well, and is free once you've used your 30 day trial to create the VM with workstation   :Wink: 

----------

## golgo13

Am I missing something? For a Windows XP guest you just make a second hardware profile and that's it right? Did I miss something. 

As root if I try booting the Raw disk image with Grub I'm not able to use my keyboard so I made Windows XP the default. Before anything happens I get the message

 *Quote:*   

> Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

 

I've read through all the posts and did read the documentation posted at the beginning of this thread but it's obvious I missed something. Any help would be appreciated.

----------

## kilianh

golgo13,

Sounds like an XP IDE driver problem. The IDE controller that XP sees in the VM is different from the real one when you boot it up natively, and it bombs out. XP is incredibly dumb in that regard (we knew that   :Wink: ), all other changed devices it reconfigures automatically.

You gotta boot natively into that new "VM" hw profile, go to the hardware manager, select the IDE controller and "update" the driver to use a standard ide dual channel one instead (select it manually if you need to). Save your settings and then boot into the vm profile in vmware, the problem should go away. Let me know if this works for you.

I'd also recommend reading everything in http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_dualboot.html if you get stuck.

----------

## golgo13

Hmm, I got past my original problem. Then I ran into the blue screen of death posted here earlier. It seems that with the patch and the change in IDE drivers I've managed to get past the BSOD, but now I'm stuck at the Windows XP startup screen. It's been about an hour now. The mouse is responsive and once in a while I see either CD-ROM or hard disk activity. I'm thinking it's frozen there but it's hard to tell. Anyone else run into this?

----------

## Waninkoko

Edited: Well, now I get 0x0000007B error. I think I can resolve it  :Smile: 

Edited 2: I can't resolve 0x0000007B error. I have changed IDE driver and installed registry patch but nothing  :Sad: 

I have a problem  :Sad: 

When I installed Windows XP in my SATA drive I had to use the SATA driver that comes in a floppy. Well, the problem is when I'm going to boot Windows under VMware. Appears the BSOD and the error that shows is relationed with file "SiWinAcc.sys", the SATA driver.

I have created a new hardware profile but I don't know how to say to Windows that it doesn't have to load the driver.

The SATA device is configured to appear as an IDE device in VMware.

Silicon Image SiI3112

Any ideas?

----------

## urcindalo

 *Shemite_Dog wrote:*   

> I had to apply the registry patch provided here      http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082, then everything worked just fine.

 

Thanks. That solved my problem, too.

However, at first I wasn't able to modify the Windows registry. It was moaning about the Mergeide.reg file not being in a suitable format to be combined (the message was in Spanish, so I'm translating my memories   :Smile:  ). What I did was to change the order of the "Service" and "ClassGUID" entries. They all were like this in M$ support page:

```
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\primary_ide_channel]

"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"

"Service"="atapi"
```

and I had to change them all to

```
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\primary_ide_channel]

"Service"="atapi"

"ClassGUID"="{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}"
```

After that, I could continue with the instructions to modify the registry.

Isn't that ironic that even M$ howtos are shit   :Rolling Eyes:  ?

----------

## golgo13

sdpeterson, I'm betting all four of your partitions are primary partitions. I think Windows XP hates anything more than 3. Try making an extended partition with logical partitions beneath it if you need more than 3

----------

## friism

I've changed the ide-driver as mentioned above, but I'm still getting the ol'e

```
*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF7B8524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)" 
```

The thing I don't understand is: Windows BSODs _before_ I choose the hardware profile, so how is changing drivers in the profiles gonna do me any good? Anyway, I tried having Windows choose the Virtual profile by default, but no luck.

Ideas anyone?

----------

## imporission

You guys don't know how helpful ya'll have been... It has taken me a bit due to the errors but I finally have VMware loading XP through linux...

BUT there still is one issue, that is not even touched on here, and I hope you don't mind me asking....

well I got into windows and everything "works" but man its slow as heck.  I own a XPS Gen 2 laptop, so I know it can handle it, and I've given it 512 memory, but particallarially when it is moving windows or opening something in the start menu... its slow. 

I would assume this might have to do with the graphics?  I have a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra which is a decent card, but well to be honest, this is my first week of linux, and it was one of the primary causes of my conflict from the get go, but since I have installed the drivers from Nvidia's site it SEEMS to be working, though I don't have any 3d things in linux to run lol

So this is like a double ended question, is it VMware causing the conflict and if so, any ideas for remedying it, or is it my graphics card installation, and if so any ideas for remedying it

or how to decipher which it is.

Sorry about that one, thanks though,

C

----------

## alet_roux

I want to try this by using only vmplayer. Would somebody mind posting a copy of their .vmx file, please?

----------

## Devport

Has anybody gotten it to work with vmware-server and sata ?

----------

## jjstickel

 *korban wrote:*   

> this worked for me:
> 
> http://www.vmware.com/community/message.jspa?messageID=292002

 

Yep, I found this to be the most help for getting my SATA harddrive, with dual boot windows, to run in vmware.  To summarize, I replaced all "scsi0:0" with "ide0:0" in [virtual machine].vmx, and then replaced "BusLogic" to "ide" in [virtual machine].vmdk.  Worked great!  No scsi driver issues and no bluescreen 0x0000007B error.  As discussed in the reference url, this wouldn't be necessary if vmware-workstation didn't automatically assume the raw disk was scsi; maybe this will be fixed in future versions of workstation.

----------

## jasn

 *m00nxaild wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Now I boot vmware winxp guest, and I could not pass the winxp login. No mouse, no keyboard.
> 
> 

 

I am also having the same problem with my install of VMWare Workstation 5.5.1. Hardware is a Toshiba Tecra S3 laptop with both a dual trackpad and a USB mouse, Host OS is Gentoo, Guest OS is XP Pro using raw disk. After properly configuring my environment so I can boot this Guest OS as raw disk, I get to the XP Login screen with no mouse or keyboard.

To restate, the keyboard does work during the boot process, I click in the screen to enable access, the system boots to my Grub screen, where I use the cursor and enter keys to load XP Pro, use the cursor and enter key again to select the XP profile (named Virtual), and then Windows fully boots to the login screen, and I have no mouse or keyboard.

I tried several different settings in VMWare, including defining the direct device for both the trackpad and the USB mouse (obviously USB is selected too). I also tried unplugging the USB mouse and not plugging it in until the Windows login screen appears. Safe mode does not enable the keyboard or mouse either. Nothing seems to work.

I don't know if it had anything to do with modular X, but I made sure I had the proper vmware input and video drivers enabled and then I rebuilt my xorg-x11 package anyway. Still no joy.

Any help is appreciated..

----------

## Muschl

Hi,

i would like to run my real Windows XP installation under Ubuntu VMWare Server.

With the help from the following sites you can configure your VMWare Server to boot into raw disks.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-246371-highlight-ntfs%20vmware.html

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=46db455bc6e67786a2203087e5cd11d3&t=183209

Now the Solution for No Keyboard and Mouse in VMWare.

1. Download the PE HWPnP Tool from Paraglider

http://www.paraglidernc.com/plugins/HWPnP.cab

2. Create the directory C:\fixvm\ on your Windows XP System Disk (C:\)

mkdir /media/hda1/fixvm

2. Extract the Files to the folder C:\fixvm\ on your Windows XP System Disk (C:\)

cabextract -d /media/hda1/fixVM HWPnP.cab

mkdir /tmp/iso

mount -t iso9660 /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso -o loop /tmp/iso

cp -r /tmp/iso/* /media/hda1/fixvm

echo FixVM Stage 1 start > /media/hda1/fixvm/stage1.txt

3. create the C:\fixvm\fixvm.cmd file on your Windows System disk and inject the following content

echo Searching for FixVM Stage

if exist C:\fixvm\stage1.txt (

echo FixVM Stage 1 found

msiexec -i "C:\fixvm\VMware Tools.msi" ADDLOCAL=ALL /qn

del C:\fixvm\stage1.txt

echo Stage 1 finished successfully > C:\fixvm\stage2.txt

shutdown -r -f -t 30

)

if exist C:\fixvm\stage2.txt (

C:\fixVM\HWPnP.exe +all

del C:\fixvm\stage2.txt

echo.

echo Please check the function of your Mouse and Keyboard

echo.

pause

)

end

4. reboot into your real Windows

5. Change the following Registry Keys (start/run/regedit.exe)

\HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

- AutoAdminLogon = 1

- AutoLogonCount = 5

(remember the Administrator must have a Password set)

(i think the next entrys are not needed, use it when you have problems)

- DefaultUser = *your USERNAME*

- DefaultUserName = *your USERNAME*

- DefaultPassword = *your Password*

6. Create fixvm.cmd shortcut in Startmenu/Programs/startup Folder (start/run/cmd)

ln -s C:\fixvm\fixvm.cmd "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\fixvm"

7. configure Windows for automated driver installation (start/run/cmd)

sysdm.cpl

- on tab Hardware klick the Button DriverSigning and set it to Ignore

8. After all this steps reboot into the VMWare Server running OS and start the VMWare raw disk WindowsXP.

- system boot

- autologon

- auto installing VMWare Tools

- reboot

- autologon

- auto Plug and Play Hardware detection

----------

## boroshan

Has anyone tied this with a Grub floppy?

What I'm going to try and do is create a floppy image, and install grub on it with a config file that only boots the windows partitions. Then I won't need to tell vmware about the boot partition, and I can keep all of my Gentoo partitions out of harms way

Anyone know a way to pass a profile as a boot argument for XP? If I could pass that from grub I wouldn't need to worry about booting into the wrong partition either.

----------

## highvoltag3

Has anybody fixed the GRUB 99 99 99 99 99 99 ....... boot problem?  :Crying or Very sad: 

----------

## thepickle

Has anyone tried this with the new VMWare 6.0?  I have a /dev/sda raw disk that's detected as either buslogic/lsilogic doesn't matter, neither boots, i get that 0x07b error... 

When I try to change it to ide, VMWare complains that I have a scsi disk which is present as ide and changes it back to buslogic in the vmx file.  Or something like that... I will post my vmx and vmdk files later today, as I'm not home at the moment.  Please any feedback would be appreciated in the meantime.

----------

## prolific

i have physical hdd booting working in v6 of vmware .. here are my vmx and vmdk files ..

#!/opt/vmware/workstation/bin/vmware

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "6"

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

memsize = "512"

MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Professional.vmdk"

ide0:0.deviceType = "rawDisk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

floppy0.startConnected = "FALSE"

floppy0.autodetect = "TRUE"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"

usb.present = "TRUE"

ehci.present = "TRUE"

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.fileName = "-1"

sound.autodetect = "TRUE"

svga.autodetect = "TRUE"

pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"

displayName = "Windows XP Professional"

guestOS = "winxppro"

nvram = "Windows XP Professional.nvram"

deploymentPlatform = "windows"

virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"

RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = "0"

tools.upgrade.policy = "useGlobal"

floppy0.fileName = "/dev/fd0"

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

uuid.location = "56 4d af 4f be e9 43 13-12 b6 4d 2b 6f e3 df 88"

uuid.bios = "56 4d af 4f be e9 43 13-12 b6 4d 2b 6f e3 df 88"

ide0:0.redo = ""

pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"

scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"

ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "32"

sound.pciSlotNumber = "33"

ehci.pciSlotNumber = "34"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:12:3d:43:19"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

floppy0.present = "FALSE"

ethernet0.connectionType = "custom"

ethernet0.vnet = "/dev/vmnet2"

sound.startConnected = "FALSE"

serial0.present = "TRUE"

serial0.fileName = "/dev/ttyS0"

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

CID=88ea212a

parentCID=ffffffff

createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description

RW 390721968 FLAT "/dev/hda" 0

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "6"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "16383"

ddb.geometry.heads = "16"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.geometry.biosCylinders = "1024"

ddb.geometry.biosHeads = "255"

ddb.geometry.biosSectors = "63"

ddb.adapterType = "ide"

ddb.toolsVersion = "7238"

----------

## dwardo

I've upgraded the computer (changed 80% of it) (used to have XP booting from raw on a ide disk flawlessly)

I've managed to get to boot my new raw sata XP install but I encounter 2 problems that I never had before: 

1) when I boot up the virtual machine my screen becomes all black... doing CTRL+ALT+F1 followed by CTRL+ALT+F7 I can get the vmware windows back and boot continues without  problem...

2) bootup is very very very very slow (So slow I havent' been able to install vmwaretools yet...)

If anyone has encountered 1) or 2) thanks for any feedback

Thanks 

dwardo

----------

## dwardo

Update

 *dwardo wrote:*   

> I've upgraded the computer (changed 80% of it) (used to have XP booting from raw on a ide disk flawlessly)
> 
> I've managed to get to boot my new raw sata XP install but I encounter 2 problems that I never had before: 
> 
> 1) when I boot up the virtual machine my screen becomes all black... doing CTRL+ALT+F1 followed by CTRL+ALT+F7 I can get the vmware windows back and boot continues without  problem...
> ...

 

I have found a solution to 2)

Well I've overclocked my e4400 to 3GHz insteady of the stock 2GHz... and in XP under vmware the sole processor I was giving XP was detected as 7.34 GhZ so I figured there was something it didn't like whith my processor speed...

after some googling I found a solution which consisted in adding to /etc/vmware/config the following 3 lines:

# Found on http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa;jsessionid=73AA1E2DA1F584159D471DD1BE15641E?messageID=7818&#7818

host.cpukHz = 3000000

hostinfo.noTSC = TRUE

tools.syncTime = TRUE

As for 1) I don't have the black screen if I rebbot the Virtual machine... I just have it on the very first boot...

----------

## princ3

Ok, i give it up, am i deaf, dumb or blind ? I don't even get that far as you guys, when i create a new custom virtual machine and select the physical disc, after pressing the finish button i get this error:

Error opening virtual machine "/home/dude/vmware/windows/Windows XP Home Edition.vmx": The configuration file for this virtual machine cannot be found. It might be missing from the virtual machine directory, or the path specified to access this virtual machine might be incorrect.

Configuration file: /home/dude/vmware/windows/Windows XP Home Edition.vmx.

This is not the case when i create a typical virtual machine.

What the heck am i missing ?!?

----------

## dwardo

Solved my second and last problem !!!  :Smile: 

splash (splahutils was not working on my machine since the upgrade) seems that the stock gentoo-sources kernel configurations does not support it since I had to add:

 [*]   Video mode selection support

 <*> Framebuffer Console support

To get the Gentoo livecd splash theme to work... [I had already readded Framebuffer support and vesa-tng]

So I recompiled my kernel rebooted (to see the splash theme was back) and then started vmware... AND 1) was solved  :Smile:   :Smile:   :Smile: 

Good thing I tried t solve all the problems in parallel not sequentially...

dwardo

 *dwardo wrote:*   

> Update
> 
>  *dwardo wrote:*   I've upgraded the computer (changed 80% of it) (used to have XP booting from raw on a ide disk flawlessly)
> 
> I've managed to get to boot my new raw sata XP install but I encounter 2 problems that I never had before: 
> ...

 

----------

## hunky

my turn begging for some help. Getting WinXP to start booting but bluescreens with the STOP error mentioned on this thread. Frustrating as many moons ago I had this working. I've got a separate sata disk on the local computer and have gone through the exercises in this thread to best of my abilities. The disk has 3 partitions - sda1 with NTFS where WinXp resides, sda2 with VFAT, and sda3 with ext3. I've tried configuring vmware-server with using the whole disk, with just the sda1, and with sda1 and 2.

One thing I didn't understand was how to find the pci string in the *.inf file that ichief talked about here https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2104789.html#2104789 so I just used the example he gave when editing the registry. Perhaps that could be the problem. I did download the scsi driver from vmware and extract it to the System32/drivers directory.

I went ahead and merged the .reg file in the microsoft help page given a few posts back, though from ichief I probably didn't need to. I tried editing the .vmdk and changing buslogic to ide with no change. Here's the vmdk file:

```
# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

CID=6dac2170

parentCID=ffffffff

createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description

RW 312581808 FLAT "/dev/sda" 0

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.adapterType = "ide"

ddb.geometry.biosSectors = "63"

ddb.geometry.biosHeads = "255"

ddb.geometry.biosCylinders = "19457"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.geometry.heads = "255"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "19457"

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"

```

Here's the .vmx file (when I set scsi0.present = "FALSE" nothing changes, or if I set ide0:0.present - ="TRUE", then I get an error that partitions changed):

```

#!/opt/vmware/server/bin/vmware

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "4"

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

memsize = "512"

ide0:0.present = "FALSE"

ide0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Home Edition.vmdk"

ide0:0.writeThrough = "TRUE"

ide0:0.deviceType = "rawDisk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "/dev/hda"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

floppy0.fileName = "bootdisk.img"

Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

displayName = "Windows XP Home Edition"

guestOS = "winxphome"

priority.grabbed = "normal"

priority.ungrabbed = "normal"

powerType.powerOff = "hard"

powerType.powerOn = "hard"

powerType.suspend = "hard"

powerType.reset = "hard"

ide0:0.redo = ""

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

uuid.location = "56 4d e3 d0 b5 ae e1 3c-94 3e 5b 76 e9 d6 00 39"

uuid.bios = "56 4d e3 d0 b5 ae e1 3c-94 3e 5b 76 e9 d6 00 39"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:d6:00:39"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

floppy0.fileType = "file"

floppy0.startConnected = "TRUE"

floppy0.autodetect = "TRUE"

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

usb.present = "TRUE"

usb.generic.autoconnect = "FALSE"

usb.autoConnect.device0 = ""

usb.autoConnect.device1 = ""

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.fileName = "-1"

sound.autodetect = "TRUE"

sound.virtualDev = "es1371"

scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Home Edition-3.vmdk"

scsi0:0.deviceType = "rawDisk"

scsi0:0.redo = ""

checkpoint.vmState = ""

debug = "TRUE"

sound.startConnected = "FALSE"

```

I did just think, as I was writing this, that maybe my bootdisk.img has somehow become wrong so better check that when I figure out how again - but not sure I would get windows booting as far as it does if that wasn't right.

thanks - Jim

----------

## KD-120RD

Hi

I am trying to run my Win2k (Dual-Boot) with VMware-ws-5.5

I installed vmware, created a vm and tried to run it, but got the lilo/missing-boot-partition error.

I created an boot partition on my box (/boot is now on /dev/hda5, hope that extended partitions are ok).

And now I get this error: "The partition table on the physical disk has changed since the disk was created. Remove the physical disk from the virtual machine, the add it again."

Of course I tried removing and adding the disk. I also removed the whole vm and created a new one. I deleted all the vmware settings i could find on my gentoo box: /etc/vmware, ~/vmware and ~/.vmware. I even reemerged vmware-ws.

Nothing. I can not get rid of this message.

This is very frustrating, any hint would be appreciated.

Thx

----------

## taliesin

Im about to start trying to get Windows working on VMware and Im juts curious why everyone is so hesitant to use a Partition as a virtual disk and install the Windows Boot Loader onto it?

Is there a bug which prevents this from working?

----------

## tschenturs

princ3, I had the same situation that new configurations with Raw devices could not be saved at the end of the wizard.

I use vmware as user, not as root. The permissions of the raw device has been set as follows:

```

$ ls -l /dev/sda

brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 11. Dez 06:51 /dev/sda

```

I thought that it is sufficient to add the vmware group to the disk group, but obviously that didn't do the trick. 

I have then added my user to the disk group (in /etc/group). That did it. Basically, the user I was running vmware under did not have the rights to write to the raw device. The error message of vmware is misleading though.

----------

## /dev/blackhawk

 *dwardo wrote:*   

> I've upgraded the computer (changed 80% of it) (used to have XP booting from raw on a ide disk flawlessly)
> 
> I've managed to get to boot my new raw sata XP install but I encounter 2 problems that I never had before: 
> 
> 1) when I boot up the virtual machine my screen becomes all black... doing CTRL+ALT+F1 followed by CTRL+ALT+F7 I can get the vmware windows back and boot continues without  problem...
> ...

 

I encountered a similiar problem like 1). But in my case it was a custom bootlogo for XP which disabled the hardware profile selection dialog during the boot process. Just switching back to the default theme solved the problem.

By the way has anyone a running vista with vmplayer (and raw disk access)?

----------

## urcindalo

I'm going to resuscitate this old thread  :Wink: 

Up until vmware-workstation-6.5.1.126130 I was able to boot my raw-disk installation of WinXP inside vmware workstation without problems, on my AMD64 box (stable amd64 profile). It's been also a while since I've needed to boot into Windows again. To my surprise, I'm now faced with these issues:

1) If I try to use the virtual machine created with VMware Workstation v6.0 in v6.5.1.126130, the machine boots but get stalled at Grub loading:

```
GRUB Loading stage1.5.

GRUB loading, please wait...

Error 21
```

2) If I try to create a new virtual machine with v6.5.1.126130, everytime I get to the point of selecting the whole drive where the WinXP installation resides I get this:

```
The specified device is not a valid physical disk device
```

I've doubled checked everything I can think of:

```
$ cat /etc/group | grep disk

disk::6:root,adm,haldaemon,printeruser,MY-USER-NAME,vmware
```

(Yes, I even put the user vmware here, just in case).

```
$ cat 91-local.rules && ll /dev/hd*

KERNEL=="hda", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda1", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda2", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda3", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda4", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda5", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda6", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda7", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hda8", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb1", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb2", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb3", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb4", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb5", MODE="0770"

KERNEL=="hdb6", MODE="0770"

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  0 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  1 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda1

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  2 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda2

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  3 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda3

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  4 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda4

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  5 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda5

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  6 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda6

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  7 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda7

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3,  8 mar  5  2009 /dev/hda8

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 64 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 65 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb1

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 66 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb2

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 67 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb3

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 68 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb4

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 69 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb5

brwxrwx--- 1 root disk   3, 70 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdb6

brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 22,  0 mar  5  2009 /dev/hdc
```

WinXP resides in hda1 and I boot from hdb6. Both hda and hdb disks are configured with grub:

```
# grub

grub> root (hd1,5)

 Filesystem type is reiserfs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd1)

 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes

 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes

 Checking if "/boot/grub/reiserfs_stage1_5" exists... yes

 Running "embed /boot/grub/reiserfs_stage1_5 (hd1)"...  19 sectors are embedded.

succeeded

 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd1) (hd1)1+19 p (hd1,5)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded

Done.

grub> setup (hd0)

 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes

 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes

 Checking if "/boot/grub/reiserfs_stage1_5" exists... yes

 Running "embed /boot/grub/reiserfs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  19 sectors are embedded.

succeeded

 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) (hd0)1+19 p (hd1,5)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded

Done.

grub> quit
```

Anyone else is suffering from this?

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