How to convert a single (stand-alone) drive for use as VMware image?

[dcthom]

Hello,

I am Dave, a VM neophyte.

I have Vsphere ESXi 5.0 (free) on a stand-alone desktop as a host with multiple VMs. In addition to the HDD used in the host, I have a 2TB SATA drive that is formatted in NTFS and has data I do not want to lose. I would like to allow the data on the 2TB drive to be seen by my VM's. I do not care if the drive is formatted to VMDK (or other) or not, so long as the data is not lost. Unfortunately, the host computer is the only one I have to accept the SATA drive, so transferring the files via other means (USB, network, etc) is not possible. I was thinking about using the VM standalone converter from my laptop to point at the drive physically connected to the host, but I could only figure how to back up an OS, not a disk.

Attempting due diligence, I searched the forum archives and found a similar thread from 2009. I did not see anything newer.

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1437859

I suspect, due to the age of that post, with newer software, that process is not valid for me.

Would someone tell me if either that above process is still a valid route, OR, if there is a better way created in the last 2.5 years.

Thanks for your time.

Dave

[Nikhil_Patwa]

Hi,

If you can find a USB case for your SATA drive then it's simple to plug the drive via USB port that gets detected inside your VM as ESXi 5.0 supports USB (started with ESXi 4.1). Once the drive gets detected within the VM you can transfer your data.

Hope this information is useful

Nikhil

[dcthom]

Nikhil,

I am trying to take a software route vs. the hardware.

Thanks very much for the reply.

Dave