Create independent disk ?

[zalan]

Hi

I'm trying to create an "independent-non persistent" virtual disk with Player 3.1.3 (host: Win XP Pro SP3, guest: any). The help states it's possible to select this option in the the disk creation wizard "Mode" page, but I'm unable to make such page come up. Any suggestion ?

Thank you

[zalan]

Sorry, I just found this discussion: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1599287#1599287 which answers to my question too. So, a manual editing of the .vmx file is required. This is fine for me, but the VMware Player help seems quite misleading for this topic.

If I understand well, the disk "Mode" is not an attribute of the virtual disk (.vmdk)  itself, but rather an option of the virtual machine (.vmx). This way the same  virtual disk can be "Normal" when attached to a virtual machine and "Independent" when attached to another.

Is that correct?

Regards

[continuum · Accepted solution]

sure - see http://sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-ide.html

the parameter <disk>.mode is set in the vmx-file and so apples to a VM.

the disk-mode only sets wether a specific VM can create snapshots for a special vmdk.
It is not an attribute of the vmdk itself

[zalan]

Good. Thank you.

I guess this feature is not available via menu in VMware Player because Snapshots can't be created neither.

But my purpose was different, I just wanted to make a Linux Swap virtual disk not retentive.

I was able to reach this goal by manually editing the .vmx file adding the line:

<disk>.mode = "independent-nonpersistent"

after creating and formatting a swap partition inside the disk. This reduces the host disk space required by the virtual machine when powered off, though it defeats the guest hibernation feature. The same swap disk can be shared among many Linux VM, even running concurrently.

(For whomever may be interested in...)

Regards