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3 Replies Last post: Jan 6, 2009 5:40 AM by continuum

Boot OS directly or as VMware guest OS from physical IDE disk - reliable or not ?

Jan 6, 2009 4:38 AM

vilius.m 4 posts since
Sep 28, 2008

Hi,

I do need to boot my OS as stand-alone OS or as VMware workstation guest OS. I mean single installation.
I heard that sata disks are not supported as physical disks but IDE disks are.
So I'd like to ask -
Is it reliable to have such a configuration on IDE disk - yes or no ?

thanks
Vilius

Reply Re: Boot OS directly or as VMware guest OS from physical IDE disk - reliable or not ? Jan 6, 2009 5:03 AM

continuum 12,265 posts since
Dec 18, 2003

I heard that sata disks are not supported as physical disks but IDE disks are.

I often read this and always wonder how it comes that such info is so wide spread ???
Anyway - its complete nonsense.

Unless you use a Vista host VMware Workstation can use IDE, SATA or SCSI-disks as physical disks in a VM.

If you ask about reliabilty of a dual-boot configuration ...
Well - maintaining such a configuration on the long run is not easy - so I would not call it reliable.

Last Windows that works nicely in dualboot as VM or native is Windows 2000.
All newer versions will run into problems with windows activation so you will need a Windows with a corporate license ....

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Reply Re: Boot OS directly or as VMware guest OS from physical IDE disk - reliable or not ? Jan 6, 2009 5:25 AM

in response to: continuum

vilius.m 4 posts since
Sep 28, 2008

OK, now I'm really confused.

I downloaded document called "Technical Note: Dual-Boot Computers and Virtual Machines"(dualboot_tech_note.pdf) from VMware Workstation official documentation page(http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/ws_pubs.html). And this is the cite from it:

Preparations for All Types of Disks

Regardless of whether the disk hosts a Microsoft Windows operating system or a Linux
operating system, perform these tasks:
• In general, VMware Workstation and VMware Server support booting from physical disk
partitions only on IDE drives.Booting guest operating systems from physical SCSI drives is
expected to work but has not been tested as thoroughly as for IDE drives.

So how it is really ?

thanks
Vilius

Reply Re: Boot OS directly or as VMware guest OS from physical IDE disk - reliable or not ? Jan 6, 2009 5:40 AM

in response to: vilius.m

continuum 12,265 posts since
Dec 18, 2003

Ignore that.
best way to boot in such a scenario is to boot from a floppy-image - then it doesn't matter what if the disk is SCSI , SATA or IDE

___________________________________

description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

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