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christr77
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ESXi 4 - Need to mount disks that were originally ext3

Please forgive my ignorance, as I am new to VMware. I have a system with three disks. I recently installed ESXi, and now I'm wanting to read the data off of the other disks that were originally Ubuntu Linux (ext3). The primary boot HDD is VMFS running ESXi. I want to be able to mount those two disks that were originally my Ubuntu system to my Ubuntu VM. All I need is for the OS to be able to think they are physical devices attached to it, and I can easily set them up from there. If I try to add these two HDDs to ESXi by going to Configuration / Storage / Add Storage... I can see the disks, and it even says they are Linux, but it only gives me the option to erase the disks and start them over. That's the last thing I want to do, as the data on them is very important. From the VM's own configuration I can't find any option to present these devices to the VM. What am I missing here? It seems only logical that I should be able to do this.

Thanks!!!

P.S. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a topic that has been brought up before, but I can't find anything on this from my searches.

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AndreTheGiant
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Ok... the solution is RDM.

The problem is that isn't simple for local disk.

See:

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/vmware-esx-storage-how-to-get-local-sto...

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro

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AndreTheGiant
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ESXi could not mount ext3 filesystem.

You have to play your VM and then use the console or SSH.

To power on your Ubuntu, you have to add your datastore (without re-format), browse it and add the vmx file to the inventory.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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christr77
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Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly. Are you saying it's not possible to mount these Linux ext3 disks to my new Ubuntu VM? I don't want to use them as VMFS datastores. I just want to figure out a way for my new Ubuntu VM to be able to see them as a device when I run something such as "sudo lshw -C disk"--- that way I can mount them. These are local SATA disks inside the same machine.

Looks like I'll be searching for another VM product if that's the case....

Thanks!

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AndreTheGiant
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So you have a local physical disk with a ext3 partition and you want to mount it inside your Ubuntu VM?

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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christr77
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Yes, that's exactly it.

Thank you for your help, hopefully you can help me. Smiley Happy

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AndreTheGiant
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Ok... the solution is RDM.

The problem is that isn't simple for local disk.

See:

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/vmware-esx-storage-how-to-get-local-sto...

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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christr77
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That answers my question. Thank you very much. It now sounds like I'll probably just move the data off of these disks to another temporary location, convert the disks to datastores, and then move the data back. Either way it's going to be a very long and tedious process.

It sounds less complicated than having to do all of that. It just makes me nervous physically storing such important data in what amounts to be in reality single files.

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AndreTheGiant
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Note that RDM seem to be vmdk files, but are only proxy/pointer files.

The data are on the ext3 partition, not into the vmdk.

Is not simple only because it is not "supported" for local disk Smiley Wink

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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caseystone
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The solution detailed by Edward L. Haletky that you linked above, Andre, was written for ESX 3.5 (it seems). Do we believe that the process still works in ESXi 4.0?

I hope so, because I wish to incorporate a VM NAS that is talking directly to SATA disks.

Thank you.

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AndreTheGiant
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Do we believe that the process still works in ESXi 4.0?

I haven't tried yet on ESX 4.0.

Somebody in the community has tried but with no success.

Andre

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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