VDDK v1.2 can't create disk on alternate filesystem

[cappellof]

I work on a non-NTFS filesystem for Windows and need to be able to create a virtual disk there.

Using the new VDDK v1.2, I try the following command:

vmware-vdiskmanager -c -a lsilogic -t 0 -s 70 GB
.pdvfs\myserver\2\CarlData\CarlData.vmdk

It fails with the error:

Failed to create disk: The file is too big for the filesystem (0xc00000015).

Using the same utility from VDDK 1.1 works fine.

If I map the "share" to a drive letter, the following V1.2 command works OK too:

vmware-vdiskmanager -c -a lsilogic -t 0 -s 70 GB Q:\2\CarlData\CarlData.vmdk

I know from painful experience last year that the "file is too big" error is fairly generic,and usually means vixdisklib thinks the target filesystem isn't NTFS. I modified my driver last year to convince vixdisklib v1.1 it was OK to create a big virtual disk there. I also remember the library distinguishes between a target name starting with "
" vs. one with a drive letter. Is there something I can do to make v1.2 accept the "
.pdvfs" form of filename?

[admin]

Hi,

Since there is no robust way to verify that a file system can support large files (>2GB), VDDK uses a few heuristics to filter out file systems that claim to be NTFS but not support large files. You can get around these checks by mapping the volume to a drive letter and using the drive letter.

Thanks

Sudarsan

[cappellof]

Thanks for the quick response. Yes, I know about the heuristics, but they seem to have changed from v1.1 to v1.2. Is there any way to fool VDDK v1.2 into believing I'm an NTFS filesystem without mapping a drive letter? What characteristics is it looking for when faced with a filename that starts with "
" ?

Carl

[admin · Accepted solution]

I see case sensitive search, named streams and persistent acl support as defining NTFS for this check. Can you confirm if you have these?

Thanks

Sudarsan

[cappellof]

Ok, I don't support named streams, but can lie about that. Does the new VDDK actually use named streams on NTFS?

For reference, V1.1's check was "compression", "unicode on disk" and "persistent ACLs".

Thanks,

Carl

[admin]

No VDDK does not use streams. I believe compression was taken out because older NTFS versions did not support it.

-Sudarsan

[cappellof]

When I added FS attributes claiming support for named streams and case-sensitive search, everything worked.

Many thanks for your quick response.

Carl