VMware Workstation cannot open one of the virtual disks needed by this VM because it is larger than the maximum file size supported by the host file system.

[TBOlson]

I'm in the process of moving from Windows XP (64-bit) to a new machine with Windows 7 installed. I moved from VMWare Workstation 6 to 7.0.1 as part of the process. The problem is with a very large RAID 5 volume on the new system. It is a 5.45 TB partition (GPT and NTFS).

When I try to start a virtual machine on that volume, I get the message "VMware Workstation cannot open one of the virtual disks needed by this VM because it is larger than the maximum file size supported by the host file system.". This is obviously not true. If I copy the virtual machine to another drive on the system, it starts without a problem.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to get around this problem?

[continuum]

are you trying to use the 5 TB raid as a physical disk inside a VM ?

That will not work - max allowed size is 2 Tb - max known to work flawless size is 950 Gb.

Or are you just storeing usual vmdks on that 5 Tb volume ?




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VMX-parameters- Workstation FAQ -[ MOA-liveCD|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VM-Sickbay

[TBOlson]

Just storing VMs on the RAID volume...

[continuum · Accepted solution]

try to add this line to the vmx-file:

diskLib.sparseMaxFileSizeCheck= "false"

Maybe that helps.

Which vmdk-type do you use ?

monolithicSparse ? - thats the one piece growing type ?




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- Workstation FAQ -[ MOA-liveCD|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VM-Sickbay

[TBOlson]

The disks are single file, not preallocated.

The line 'diskLib.sparseMaxFileSizeCheck= "false"' seems to have done the trick!

Thanks!

[TBOlson]

The underlying problem turned out to be the use of the "subst" command to create a virtual drive.  I try to maintain the same environment across machines and had created a "V:\" drive in "R:\Drive-V".  When I access the vmdk directly as R:\Drive-V\Machine\Drive.vmdk rather than V:\Machine\Drive.vmdk everything works as it should without the need to modify the vmx file...

[continuum]

use junctions instead of subst - works better