Can't start VM based on external Bootcamp partition

[m1chth0m]

I've been using VMware Fusion very happily for years, and have a Windows 10 guest in a Bootcamp partition that previously worked in VMWare.

I moved that partition from the internal Fusion drive in my iMac to a Thunderbolt SSD for better performance. Sometimes the VMDK file had to be recreated because the device numbering changed on reboot but all was well.

I've upgraded to Big Sur 11.2 / VMWare Fusion Player 12.1.0 recently and have been struggling. The Windows partition is healthy, I can boot into it from the startup sequence, and it's fully patched with all the latest Apple Boot Camp stuff.

VMWare can see the Bootcamp partition and makes a new VM to use that partition directly (not imported). But when it tries to start up I get:

Operation not permitted. Cannot open the disk '/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Module 'Disk' power on failed. Failed to start the virtual machine

And the log file includes some more details:

Spoiler

2021-02-07T22:12:58.544Z| vmx| I005: DISK: OPEN sata0:0 '/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk' persistent R[]
2021-02-07T22:12:58.546Z| vmx| I005: DISKLIB-DSCPTR: Opened [0]: "Boot Camp-pt.vmdk" 0 (0xa)
2021-02-07T22:12:58.549Z| vmx| I005: RawDiskAuthReadPrivilegesDictionary: processing 'always ask' UIDs: ''
2021-02-07T22:12:58.549Z| vmx| I005: RawDiskAuthReadPrivilegesDictionary: processing 'never ask' UIDs: '501'
2021-02-07T22:12:58.549Z| vmx| I005: AppleXPC: Connecting to privileged service com.vmware.MountHelper...
2021-02-07T22:12:58.737Z| host-21577| I005: AppleXPC: Connection established to service com.vmware.MountHelper
2021-02-07T22:12:58.737Z| vmx| I005: DISKLIB-FLAT : "/dev/disk2s1" is already unmounted on open.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.737Z| vmx| I005: AppleXPC: Connecting to privileged service com.vmware.DiskHelper...
2021-02-07T22:12:58.937Z| vmx| I005: AppleXPC: Connection established to service com.vmware.DiskHelper
2021-02-07T22:12:58.937Z| vmx| I005: FILE:open error on /dev/disk2s1: Operation not permitted
2021-02-07T22:12:58.937Z| vmx| I005: AIOGNRC: Failed to open '/dev/disk2s1' : Operation not permitted (10002) (0x10103).
2021-02-07T22:12:58.937Z| vmx| I005: OBJLIB-FILEBE : FileBEOpen: can't open '/dev/disk2s1' : Operation not permitted (65540).
2021-02-07T22:12:58.937Z| vmx| I005: DISKLIB-FLAT : "/dev/disk2s1" : failed to open (65545): ObjLib_Open failed.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: DISKLIB-LINK : "/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk" : failed to open (Operation not permitted).
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: DISKLIB-CHAIN : "/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk" : failed to open (Operation not permitted).
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: DISKLIB-LIB : Failed to open '/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk' with flags 0xa Operation not permitted (65545).
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: DISK: Cannot open disk '/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk': Operation not permitted (65545).
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: DISK: Opening disks took 393 ms.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: Module 'Disk' power on failed.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.938Z| vmx| I005: VMX_PowerOn: ModuleTable_PowerOn = 0
2021-02-07T22:12:58.939Z| svga| I005: SVGA: SVGA thread is skipping the main loop
2021-02-07T22:12:58.939Z| vmx| I005: MKS/SVGA threads are stopped
2021-02-07T22:12:58.945Z| mks| I005: MKS-RenderMain: Stopped ISBRenderer
2021-02-07T22:12:58.946Z| mks| I005: MKS PowerOff
2021-02-07T22:12:58.946Z| svga| I005: SVGA thread is exiting
2021-02-07T22:12:58.946Z| mks| I005: MKS thread is exiting
2021-02-07T22:12:58.946Z| vmx| W003:
2021-02-07T22:12:58.947Z| deviceThread| I005: Device thread is exiting
2021-02-07T22:12:58.947Z| vmx| I005: Vix: [mainDispatch.c:1163]: VMAutomationPowerOff: Powering off.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.947Z| vmx| W003: /Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmx: Cannot remove symlink /var/run/vmware/501/2272310963_1167/configFile: No such file or directory
2021-02-07T22:12:58.948Z| vmx| I005: Policy_SavePolicyFile: invalid arguments to function.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.948Z| vmx| I005: PolicyVMX_Exit: Could not write out policies: 15.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.948Z| vmx| I005: WORKER: asyncOps=1 maxActiveOps=1 maxPending=1 maxCompleted=0
2021-02-07T22:12:58.948Z| PowerNotifyThread| I005: PowerNotify thread exiting.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.948Z| vmx| I005: Vix: [mainDispatch.c:4204]: VMAutomation_ReportPowerOpFinished: statevar=1, newAppState=1873, success=1 additionalError=0
2021-02-07T22:12:58.954Z| vmx| I005:
2021-02-07T22:12:58.954Z| vmx| I005+ Power on failure messages: Operation not permitted
2021-02-07T22:12:58.954Z| vmx| I005+ Cannot open the disk '/Users/michthom/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.954Z| vmx| I005+ Module 'Disk' power on failed.
2021-02-07T22:12:58.954Z| vmx| I005+ Failed to start the virtual machine.

I'm guessing that this may be a combination of Big Sur's new more restrictive permission model, and VMWare assuming that a Boot Camp partition will only be on an internal drive? But if anyone has clues to make this work, I'd be willing to try some options.

As you can probably guess this isn't core to my workflow, and I can always boot off the Windows partition if I really need to, but I miss the convenience of VMWare and keeping Windows in its own window, under the supervision of my preferred operating system...

P.S. I believe this is a separate issue to the one discussed in this thread.

[continuum]

Please attach Boot Camp.vmdk and the vmx-file and the last vmware.log to your next reply.

Ulli

[scott28tt]

@m1chth0m 

Moderator: Moved to Fusion Discussions

[m1chth0m]

Adding log files as suggested by @continuum and thanks to @scott28tt for recategorising this.