Virtual Linux HDDs can no longer be read?

[MagikGimp]

Hello all,

I have 5 virtual Linux machines on VMWare but since updating the player the HDDs for the majority can no longer seem to be read. I get grub errors or kernel panics on all but Caldera v2.3 which still boots to desktop. The drives are detected but do not seem to be able to be read, past the boot loaders at least.

I recently tried out Hyper-V with all the changes it makes but have experienced BSODs and slowdown so have since removed this platform. I am aware that VMWare now works alongside Hyper-V and installs extra facilities if it detects it on the host machine but I wonder if doing this has affected my virtual machines somehow. I have also "Turned off Windows Features" Windows Subsystem for Linux & Virtual Machine Platform to no avail.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated as getting these mostly old installs working was quite some effort in the first place. Thank you.

[wila]

Hi,

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@MagikGimp wrote:

I am aware that VMWare now works alongside Hyper-V

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Well... that's debatable. Yes it looked like it worked reasonable as long as you don't have enabled hypervisor features for your guest.

Also note that there are many ways on Windows now that enable Hyper-V and that could trigger booting problems similar to what you are reporting here.

So far from what I read I doubt it is a "Linux HDDs cannot be read" issue, but a "failing to boot" issue.

How about you attach a vmware.log file from one of the problem VMs?

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Wil

[MagikGimp]

Where does Workstation 16 Player save logs to, please? I can't find anything online about this product regarding logging and/or the instructions no longer apply. When I click View Messages from the Player menu it is blank. How do I turn logging on exactly?

[wila]

Hi,

Logs are written by default.

The vmware.log file is created in the same folder as where your VM is stored.

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Wil

[MagikGimp]

Apologies, my computer is not showing .log as a file extension for some reason. I have a feeling that's been a Windows thing for a while. Anyway, digressions. Logs attached. Only two for now. The larger one is a modern distro (Manjaro 21.0 XFCE) and the smaller Debian Woody. This will hopefully cover the problems of all the installs that aren't booting properly.

[wila]

Hi,

Not seeing anything wrong in the .log file(s).
The settings all look very sensible and no clear errors that are reported in the log.

The one thing that has me wondering is if perhaps the CPU is too old. It's a CPU from 2009 and it might just have fallen off the list of supported CPU's. While I would have expected a proper error to pop up in that case, it might have slipped through the checks somehow.

The thing I would suggest to try is to install VMware Workstation Player 15.1 and see if that one runs.

You should be able to download it from: Download VMware Player 15.1

(Please note that you might have to click on the above link 2 times, 1 times for logging in and a second time for the actual download, something to do with broken download logic from vmware)

Hope this helps,
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Wil

[MagikGimp]

All the VMs were originally made with v16.1.2-17966106 and ran fine, albeit alongside the problems encountered along my Linux learning curve. Has anything changed since that version with the latest build? I don't see the need to downgrade by two years of updates but I may uninstall this current version and install the one I originally used. I can't think what else could be causing trouble if you can't see anything in the logs.

[wila]

Hi,

AFAIK the changes between 16.2 and 16.1 are not that big for a Windows host, but ... I only get to see the release notes like everyone else. Note that I don't work for VMware.

The release notes of both versions have no changes that I see for system requirements in regards to the AMD processor.

If it ran fine on 16.1.2 before then it should still run fine on 16.1.2.

There's an issue somewhere with the latest Nvidia graphics driver for Linux guests, but for those users it has a "slow typing" side effect. Not a "cannot even boot problem".

Besides that your debian woody guest doesn't even have 3D enabled.

You might try a re-install of VMware Workstation (uninstall -> reboot -> install) and see if that helps.
If you still have the same issues after than, then yes.. go back to 16.1.2.

Sorry that I don't have a better answer.

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Wil

[MagikGimp]

Downgrading didn't help but it did get rid of my audio scratching (another problem since WSL)! At least I hope so. The latency has been caused by high network traffic but then I've always run P2P clients.

When I uninstalled the latest Player I was watching a video at the same time and when the process finished the video stopped and all my sound through my Bluetooth headset went off. I believe that my VMWare install was still clinging to something that WSL turned on (Hyper-V, the other two virtualisation technologies and such) and it was that that was causing problems. Now I'm a bit afraid to touch anything as things are back as they were but I suppose I'll keep an eye out for the next VMW update and cross my fingers when I cross that bridge. I mean I can still use this slightly older version. Can I use Linux without major problems though? Now that's another story...

Thanks for your input wila. Your help with the logs was invaluable considering I wouldn't have known where to start. This whole thing could simply be down to Linux desktop's flaky stability but I still hold a suspicion that when I updated VMW a fundamental change was made in regards to WSL being present which caused disruption with access to resources or whatever. I'm way over my head here of course but you just get intuition based on observation; you know? I mean, for 4 out of 5 VMs all to have similar or the same problems at the same time and the only one unaffected being a very old one? Can't be coincidence.