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michel_desbiens
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Access a physical HD through a VM

Hello all,

I'm new to VMware. I read about my question, but I'm confuse and afraid to loose my data.

Configuration

Host : Suse 10 Enterprise Desktop

Guest: Windows XP

I want to take a NTFS Data Disk from another workstation and make the data accessible to the guest WinXP. In the Windows disk configuration, I'm not seeing the new drive.

When I'm going through the VMware configuration to add a new disk drive, based on the question I have to answer, I'm not sure I'm on the on the right track.

Please help!

Michel

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jimbo45
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I'm running SLED 10 also as HOST.

SAMBA is NOT dangerous --it's been around a long long time, stable and used world wide in literally 100,000's or even millions of installations world wide. It's also reasonably secure (certainly more secure than the average Windows workstation).

The EASY way to do it is

1) Install FUSE 2.6.3 with ntfs-3g on the Host. This will enable NTFS WRITE. This way you can then use SAMBA to control access to the Windows share from your VM and enable it for WRITE (also on your VM).

2) install SAMBA on your SLED 10 machine

3) enable the disk (or directory) as a SAMBA share --plenty of documentation on how to do that.

4) ensure the Windows User on the VM has a SAMBA account on the SLED 10 machine --do this with smbpasswd -a user and enter password when prompted. Change the word user to the samba user you want to set up.

5) ensure the windows drive is mounted on the host

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/xxx /windows/G (replace xxx with your device and choose any mount point you like --should be the same as you defined in the SAMBA share.

6) ensure the samba service is started (smb / nmb)

7) now in Windows network places you should see your SAMBA share. Mount it as a network drive and you are good to go.

I'm actually using 3 X 400GB USB disks like this --never a problem with both READ and WRITE.

Forget the paragon NTFS stuff. FUSE / ntfs-3g combo is stable and reliable and I've never lost data (which I have using Paragon backup / restore).

A relatively easy way of setting up samba shares in KDE is to use a little documented feature in KDE

Via the RUN command enter kcmshell 'fileshare'

Click the administrator button

Now set up your shares -- really simple way --why this feature is "relatively" undocumented" I don't know --but it makes a doddle of the whole process.

Also use SWAT for the other options. Enable SWAT and then point a browser at localhost:901 enter root's password and you've got a nice graphical GUI for setting up SAMBA.

Of course in any case whatever system you use ALWAYS BACKUP DATA - especially critical data. Backing up your OS is also a good idea whether a VM or Real.

Cheers

-J

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RDPetruska
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The safest way to access data on another disk/partition is via network file sharing (Windows File Sharing / Samba).

devzero
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dangerous, but possible...

remember: never mount it twice at the same time - i.e. do not mount it in linux, if it`s in use inside your VM. this will corrupt your ntfs data structures.

what`s the device-name of the disk ?

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michel_desbiens
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The device is not mounted on the host. There is only 1 x 73GB NTFS partition on it.

In the guest VM (Windows), the device name will be 😧 if I can see it. In Linux, the device name is /dev/sdb

I prefer to go with a fully supported approach. That disk contains business data and I cannot take a chance to loose on day of data if something goes wrong,

I'm now looking to use Paragon NTFS for Linux. Based on the documentation, I can mount the disk as an NTFS partition on Linux and then share it with the Win XP VM. Of course, I didn't test it yet.

Thanks.

Michel

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ritterwolf
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A safer solution if you can do it:

Image the source disk

Create a new virtual disk for the destination machine.

Load the image onto the destination disk.

This is probably the safest wqay there is to do it. Bit of a time sink, but it will get the job done with minimal risk to the data.

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devzero
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>I'm now looking to use Paragon NTFS for Linux.

don`t !

i recommend using ntfs-3g instead !

jimbo45
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I'm running SLED 10 also as HOST.

SAMBA is NOT dangerous --it's been around a long long time, stable and used world wide in literally 100,000's or even millions of installations world wide. It's also reasonably secure (certainly more secure than the average Windows workstation).

The EASY way to do it is

1) Install FUSE 2.6.3 with ntfs-3g on the Host. This will enable NTFS WRITE. This way you can then use SAMBA to control access to the Windows share from your VM and enable it for WRITE (also on your VM).

2) install SAMBA on your SLED 10 machine

3) enable the disk (or directory) as a SAMBA share --plenty of documentation on how to do that.

4) ensure the Windows User on the VM has a SAMBA account on the SLED 10 machine --do this with smbpasswd -a user and enter password when prompted. Change the word user to the samba user you want to set up.

5) ensure the windows drive is mounted on the host

mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/xxx /windows/G (replace xxx with your device and choose any mount point you like --should be the same as you defined in the SAMBA share.

6) ensure the samba service is started (smb / nmb)

7) now in Windows network places you should see your SAMBA share. Mount it as a network drive and you are good to go.

I'm actually using 3 X 400GB USB disks like this --never a problem with both READ and WRITE.

Forget the paragon NTFS stuff. FUSE / ntfs-3g combo is stable and reliable and I've never lost data (which I have using Paragon backup / restore).

A relatively easy way of setting up samba shares in KDE is to use a little documented feature in KDE

Via the RUN command enter kcmshell 'fileshare'

Click the administrator button

Now set up your shares -- really simple way --why this feature is "relatively" undocumented" I don't know --but it makes a doddle of the whole process.

Also use SWAT for the other options. Enable SWAT and then point a browser at localhost:901 enter root's password and you've got a nice graphical GUI for setting up SAMBA.

Of course in any case whatever system you use ALWAYS BACKUP DATA - especially critical data. Backing up your OS is also a good idea whether a VM or Real.

Cheers

-J

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