I cannot RDM harddrives

[BrandonBBB]

Hi all,

I have seen this document:  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101770...

But the symtoms don't seem to match mine.  I have a Server 2008 R2 install I want to pass a few harddrives through.  These are my main storage drives from my previous regular install of Server 2008 and have all of my data on them.  However, when I try to add an RDM harddrive, its greyed out.  The drives show up under storage adapters fine.  I tried unmounting them to see if that would help.

This is my first VMWare venture, so please forgive my ignorance. 

BTW, mobo is an MSI H61 based board.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Brandon

[athlon_crazy · Accepted solution]

Is it you want to do RDM for local drive instead. This is not supported though somebody could managed to do it. Check this out

[marcelo_soares]

What do you mean by "I tried unmounting them to see if that would help."? Have you formatted the LUNs as VMFS befor trying to add them as RDMs?

[BrandonBBB]

Since these drives already contain data that I need to attach to my Server 2008 VM, if I format them I'd be deleting all of my data, right?  I find it hard to believe that Vsphere would be so difficult to simply pass through a harddrive, but apparently its not an easy task for some reason.  I will assume the reason is due to being geared more toward larger installations than a server or two. 

Anyway, I can't format these drives as they contain data I need. 

Thanks,

Brandon

[BrandonBBB]

Thank you for the link.  I had seen these instructions elsewhere, I just hadn't given them a shot yet.  I keep thinking there has to be a simple way to only add a HDD to a server.  I believe I am wrong at this point. 

Now I've got to figure out how to enable SSH so I can give this a shot... I don't believe I did when I installed it.

Brandon

[BrandonBBB]

This worked perfectly and was fairly simple.  Thank you for the link!

FWIW, I found these instructions a bit easier to read:

http://blog.davidwarburton.net/2010/10/25/rdm-mapping-of-local-sata-storage-for-esxi/

Brandon