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uruiamme
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Fusion 1.1 DOESN'T SEE my BOOT CAMP partition

I installed Fusion as a download trial for the first time. When I ran Fusion, it does not list my boot camp partition in the Virtual Machine Library, so I cannot use the program. My 30 day ticker is running with no way to evaluate it here.

VMware Fusion 1.1 (62573)

MacBook Pro 17" Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM

OS X 10.4.11 (Just updated to this)

Windows XP SP2 running as a boot camp

Bootcamp beta 1.4

I have been using Boot Camp since I bought the Mac in December. Now, the beta version 1.4 is still installed, but obviously disabled now thanks to LOSERoBCLENSE (Leopard Operating SystEm revocation of Boot Camp LicENSEs). When I run Startup Disk in Mac OS X, it does NOT list the boot camp partition anymore. However, I have the Windows partition set to bootable (see my fdisk output below) and so I boot to my boot camp fine. I can also hit the Option key (formerly known as the ALT key) to choose my OS at boot time.

Here are a few caveats:

1. I installed Windows originally as FAT32. After languishing over the many crashes I had, I reluctantly converted it to NTFS so that Windows did not always boot up slow with the disk check after each crash. Well, it turned out that NTFS conversion is stupid, as Windows' partitioning utility uses 512 KB clusters... ouch. So now booting and the entire computer runs a little slower because of the overhead (NTFS should use 4KB clusters, IIRC, to be fast).

2. I don't use Mac a lot, so I am unfamiliar with it. However, I believe I installed everything correctly.

3. I was TRYING to avoid temporarily buying both Leopard and VMware. But now that I see that VMware doesn't detect my working boot camp, am I forced to upgrade the OS first?

computer:~ yourname$ sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk0

Password:

Disk: /dev/rdisk0 geometry: 19457/255/63

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec

-


1: EE 0 0 2 - 25 127 14

2: AF 25 127 15 - 1023 223 5 HFS+

*3: 07 1023 49 7 - 1023 80 23 HPFS/QNX/AUX

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 unused

says that this "HPFS/QNX/AUX" type 7 is really NTFS. Not sure why Darwin is using such old code, probably from the early 90s before NTFS was around, I guess.

$ sudo gpt -r show disk0

gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 245366784 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

245776424 262144

246038568 66543200 3 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

312581768 7

312581775 32 Sec GPT table

312581807 1 Sec GPT header ***************** $ sudo diskutil list Password: /dev/disk0 #: type name size identifier 0: GUID_partition_scheme *149.1 GB disk0 1: EFI 200.0 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Billy's MacBook 160 117.0 GB disk0s2 3: Microsoft Basic Data 31.7 GB disk0s3 /dev/disk1 #: type name size identifier 0: FDisk_partition_scheme *93.2 GB disk1 1: Windows_NTFS USB100 93.2 GB disk1s1 /dev/disk2 #: type name size identifier 0: Apple_partition_scheme *178.1 MB disk2 1: Apple_partition_map 31.5 KB disk2s1 2: Apple_HFS VMware Fusion 178.1 MB disk2s2

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rcardona2k
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I'm not sure who you're referring to as is a VMware employee. You are quite close to reproducing a VM similar to what VMware produces for the Boot Camp partition. I have tried these steps on my machine, so I know they work, with the caveat that my Boot Camp partition has already been prepared by VMware and it has the Tools installed. You're welcome to try it.

1. Go through the New Machine Wizard and make a new Windows XP VM named "BC". Accept the default to create a virtual disk-- this is a placeholder we will replace later. it will not take up much space (i.e. not 20GB). Please be careful to UNcheck "Windows Easy Install" and UNcheck "Start virtual machine and install operating system now" - we obviously won't be doing these.

2. Once you have this "Boot Camp" machine defined, open Terminal and cd to Documents/Virtual Machines/BC.vmwarevm

3. Delete the placeholder virtual disk you created in Step 1, rm BC.vmdk

4. Create a raw disk pointing to your Boot Camp partition, which from your output above is exactly: "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmware-rawDiskCreator" create /dev/disk0 3 BC ide

(NOTE: The name is important to match what's in the .vmx file, which is BC.vmdk - the command above creates a replacement name for the file you deleted in Step 3)

5. Start the Virtual Machine. You will be asked to provide your system password to gain read/write access to the Boot Camp partition.

When you get this working, you will want to open the BC bundle and add these two lines to your BC.vmx file (otherwise you can damage your Boot Camp partition):

snapshot.disabled = "TRUE"

suspend.disabled = "TRUE"

Good luck

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rcardona2k
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I have tes Mac running OS X 10.4.11 and I can still see my Boot Camp partition in Startup Disk, I can also select Windows at startup.

Have you tried to hold down the option key at startup to boot into Windows? If Windows is not booting try using the Windows install CD to repair the installation before attempting to run it under Fusion. Also you can try temporarily disconnecting your USB drives so Fusion only sees your MacBook Pro's internal drive, this temporary step might aid the initial Boot Camp partition detection.

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BP9906
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Fusion should create a VMDK that maps to your XP Partition.

You could always force it by using vmware-vdiskcreator. Its a command line utility (although Eric made a nice GUI for it - search forum). Even better would be to use that utility to see if it sees your bootcamp partition correctly. There's a command line option to check that. The utility is in /Library/Application Support/VMware/Fusion ...

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MandarMS
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Before proceeding with the steps suggested below, please backup all critical data which is there on your Mac system.

1. Quit all applications in Host Mac OS X

2. Open Terminal utility from Macintosh HD  Applications  Utilities folder.

3. Key-in the following command

$ sudo fdisk /dev/rdisk0

4. Preferably take the screenshot of the output or Note down the output (for restoring MBR).

5. Key-in the following command

$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

setpid 3

Choose 07 (as the partition type)

write

Y

Restart your Mac System

For more details please check the example shown below:

$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0 (this will help to change the MBR)

$ fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory

Enter 'help' for information

fdisk: 1> setpid 3 (Enter “setpid 3” press enter key)

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec

-


*3: 0B 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 Win95 FAT32L

Partition id ('0' to disable) : (? for help) 07 (Enter 07 Partition table)

fdisk:*1> write (enter “write” press enter key, This will change the MBR)

Device could not be accessed exclusively.

A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? Y (Press Y to modify changes)

Writing MBR at offset 0.

$ fdisk: 1> exit (enter “exit”, press enter key)

6. Restart your Mac System

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BP9906
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From Mandar's response, seems like OSX still remembers your partition as Fat32 not NTFS, since you changed it to NTFS on the Windows side. Apparently Mandar's steps will straighten that out and hopefully Fusion will auto detect correctly.

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uruiamme
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Yes, I boot to Windows XP 95% of the time on this laptop. (That would have been pretty vital info to mention if it wasn't.) It works as advertised. I am running it now. It was the default boot OS (It is startable, as you see by the asterisk) although the last time I clicked "restart" in OS X, it rebooted into Mac OS X. I just want VMware to recognize all of this inside Mac OS X!

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uruiamme
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MandarMS -- This did not work. I guess you never saw the fact that my partition already is a type 07. I carefully followed the procedure for changing my partition type to 07, rebooted into Mac OS, and VMware Fusion virtual machine library is still blank. I kept the output... here is the vital part of it...

fdisk: 1> setpid 3

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec

-


*3: 07 1023 49 7 - 1023 80 23 HPFS/QNX/AUX

Partition id ('0' to disable) : (? for help) 07

fdisk: 1> write

Device could not be accessed exclusively.

A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? y

Writing MBR at offset 0.

fdisk: 1> quit

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uruiamme
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Fusion should create a VMDK that maps to your XP Partition.

You could always force it by using vmware-vdiskcreator. Its a command line utility (although Eric made a nice GUI for it - search forum). Even better would be to use that utility to see if it sees your bootcamp partition correctly. There's a command line option to check that. The utility is in /Library/Application Support/VMware/Fusion ...

BP9906... did you mean vmware-rawdiskCreator? Or did you mean vmware-vdiskmanager?

In any case, I tried those two programs. I NEED help from a VMware guy, it looks like. Eric??

Here is the output. According to this, the utilities see my boot camp partition fine.

:/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion yourname$ ./vmware-rawdiskCreator print /dev/disk0

Nr Start Size Type Id Sytem

-- -


-


-


-- -


1 1 409639 BIOS EE Unknown

2 409640 245366784 BIOS AF HFS+

3 246038568 66543200 BIOS 7 HPFS/NTFS

:/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion yourname$ ./vmware-rawdiskCreator hasBootCamp /dev/disk0

:/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion yourname$

The last line shows that there is a 0 exit code, so apparently I have a boot camp partition. Yay, but why doesn't the GUI know?

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rcardona2k
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I'm not sure who you're referring to as is a VMware employee. You are quite close to reproducing a VM similar to what VMware produces for the Boot Camp partition. I have tried these steps on my machine, so I know they work, with the caveat that my Boot Camp partition has already been prepared by VMware and it has the Tools installed. You're welcome to try it.

1. Go through the New Machine Wizard and make a new Windows XP VM named "BC". Accept the default to create a virtual disk-- this is a placeholder we will replace later. it will not take up much space (i.e. not 20GB). Please be careful to UNcheck "Windows Easy Install" and UNcheck "Start virtual machine and install operating system now" - we obviously won't be doing these.

2. Once you have this "Boot Camp" machine defined, open Terminal and cd to Documents/Virtual Machines/BC.vmwarevm

3. Delete the placeholder virtual disk you created in Step 1, rm BC.vmdk

4. Create a raw disk pointing to your Boot Camp partition, which from your output above is exactly: "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmware-rawDiskCreator" create /dev/disk0 3 BC ide

(NOTE: The name is important to match what's in the .vmx file, which is BC.vmdk - the command above creates a replacement name for the file you deleted in Step 3)

5. Start the Virtual Machine. You will be asked to provide your system password to gain read/write access to the Boot Camp partition.

When you get this working, you will want to open the BC bundle and add these two lines to your BC.vmx file (otherwise you can damage your Boot Camp partition):

snapshot.disabled = "TRUE"

suspend.disabled = "TRUE"

Good luck

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uruiamme
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Pretty much correct rcardona2k! I ended up doing this command after deleting the vmdk file:

"/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmware-rawdiskCreator" create /dev/disk0 3 "Boot Camp Laptop" ide

It succeeded, which I was happy it took 1 second and not a few hours like I originally thought. I now have my Boot Camp's WinXP running on my laptop's external monitor in full screen mode. It looks like I need to more fully install the Tools. I wish there was more documentation about this. It appears that it is like an install CD, so it just needs to be autorun (which I have disabled in Windows). Right now, on this boot (#2 total) it is missing a decent LAN driver and so I am connected at 10 Mbps and the shared folders are not present.

But it looks promising.

#1, I wish I could have gotten a copy of this vmware tools CD. So I made a copy of the CD image for future work. Would have been nice to pre-install this to my Boot Camp computer while still alive

#2, I had received a STOP error 0xA on this machine while it sat at the login screen and thrashed the hard disk during boot #1. The main thing I did was go into the BIOS and tell it to reset the ESCD (Reset Configuration Data) so Windows would know for sure we were booting new hardware.WFM here on Boot #2.

#3, I don't know what VMCI Driver is, nor Wyse Multimedia Support is, but these are set to be not installed for some reason in the Tools install.

#4, can I switch from real boot camp to VM boot camp? That sounds fun. I could either "go native" Windows, or stick with Win on Mac most of the time.

#5, Since I had an E: drive, I am recreating it in Windows' Disk Management, but I don't know how to partition it. I made a 15GB partition on a 20GB drive. Not sure if that was smart or dumb. I will copy or move over my programs I had on E: to there.

#6, the most AGGRAVATING thing is to have to use the Control-Windows key all the time to switch. What a bother!

#7, Should copy and paste work between MacOS and Windows?

#8, I hope VNC still works. I believe I saw some support for it somewhere on the forums. I use VNC a LOT here to and from this laptop, and I was cheap and never bought it for my Mac (while there are plenty of free clients and servers for Windows)

#9, It looks like there is a tool to suck in a vmware hard disk partition called vmware-mount that I found as a free download. This may be important to be used when I boot to my native boot camp drive and I want to use my exact same E drive I use in Mac/Fusion. Not sure how best to do this: My GOAL was not to merely make drive E a network drive, since I have a feeling a lot of programs will balk at being installed on a network drive. I may have to do that, however. Presently Adobe CS3 is installed on my E drive along with Office 2007.

#10. MOST IMPORTANT: Why is this procedure so, um, complicated? Could we just make this a more possible option in the interface for Fusion somewhere? I don't know what logic kept the Boot Camp partition off the menu, but this was obviously a workaround to a bit of a glitch.

#11. "3 Days left for activation." I hate Microsoft and WPA.

So it looks like I can evaluate Fusion now. So far, once installed, it looks good. Thanks everyone for the help.

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