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corrupt
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Fat32 size limit

Hi Smiley Happy ,

I have a 4GB USB drive and was hoping to use VMware® Player 2.5.1 build-126130 to run the Virtual Machine from the USB drive. I have tried with the same version of the Player installed on XP Pro SP3 and Vista Home Premium. Both seem to give the same result. The USB drive is formatted as FAT32 which, AFAIK, has a maximum file size of approx. 4GB but the player complains with the following message with a file size just over 2GB:

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. Some remote file systems do not support files larger than 2 GB, even though the file system on the server might. Cannot open the disk 'G:\demo.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: The file is too large.

Is it possible to override and/or remove this limitation of the software? If I copy the files for the VM to the hard drive (NTFS) then the VM loads and runs fine. I was really hoping to run it directly from the USB drive though. Formatting the USB drive as NTFS is not currently an option.

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wila
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Well I don't know how much you are willing to experiment....

But here's a pointer...

http://sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-advanced.html#disklib



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Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva

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RDPetruska
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The issue is that your virtual hard disk was created as a monolithic file, and FAT32 requires it to be a 2 GB-split type. If you have Workstation or Server at your disposal, you can convert the monolithic disk to a split disk type.

corrupt
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Thank you for the response and suggestion Smiley Happy . I will give that a try but that doesn't really answer my question. Why does VMware seem to limit to 2GB on FAT32 when FAT32 is not limited to a file size of 2GB? FAT32 allows approx. 4GB for a maximum file size. FAT16 is limited to a file size of 2GB. My drive is formatted FAT32 not FAT16. So... why the limit in the software? Would someone please consider removing the limit?

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wila
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Hi,

Welcome to the VMware forums!

My oh my, the same question in just a few days..

Please read this thread: it might help clearing it all up a bit.

Sorry for not directly answering your question, if the above leads to more questions, then please ask.

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Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
corrupt
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Thanks for the welcome and for the response Smiley Happy . I would still prefer to have a single file. I would prefer to designate a specific amount of space on my USB drive ahead of time so that I leave space for other files on the disk and so I can tell at a glance exactly how much space I have left. The current vmdk file I'm working with is 1.99 GB (2,146,828,288 bytes) in size. I don't currently have a need to go over 4GB. The USB disk is only 4GB in size anyway so I couldn't exceed 4 GB if I wanted to. If performance is better (even if slightly) when using a single file then I would prefer to use a single file since I'm using a flash drive. I can understand and appreciate the 2GB split method but I'd prefer to stick with a single file in this case. I can understand giving a warning if the file is over 3.x GB in FAT32 but not allowing me to open the VM at 1.99 GB (2,146,828,288 bytes) seems a bit unfair when FAT32 is capable of supporting up to 4GB. The directory for this VM (including the other files) is 1.99 GB (2,146,947,961 bytes) in size. Is it possible to override this behaviour somehow without having to switch to the split disk method? I realize that I could format the disk using NTFS (or something else) but then it likely isn't as reliable compared to FAT32 when loading on a Linux machine. At the moment I'd prefer to stick with FAT32 for this disk and possibly use a 3GB file but...

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wila
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Hi,

I'm not aware of any tweaks that would make it possible to override this behaviour and use a single (monolithic) file instead of the split disk method.

Not sure why VMware limits to 2GB on FAT32, but it's possibly to catch some older implementations of the filesystem?

To an extent I can understand that you prefer a single file, but that's mainly cosmetic and as far as performance goes, I've not seen any difference on even a pentium III ...

As there is no other workaround on FAT disks as using split disks.. you'll have little choice I'm afraid.

Oh and preallocated or not, is not limited to split vs. monolithic disks, you can preallocate your split disks...

thanks for the points!



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Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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corrupt
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Thanks for the information. Although I might buy Workstation in the future I think I'll switch to VirtualBox for now since it doesn't seem to have this software limitation Smiley Happy . Unless someone can provide a way to override this software limitation...

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wila
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Well I don't know how much you are willing to experiment....

But here's a pointer...

http://sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-advanced.html#disklib



--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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corrupt
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Thank You! :smileygrin:

diskLib.sparseMaxFileSizeCheck= "false" does the trick Smiley Happy

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wila
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Hi,

Thanks for the points and for letting us know what setting worked for you on this.

Isn't it a wonderful product to be able to override the default developers restrictions Smiley Happy



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Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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