Physical Disks

[Packs]

I need to access a data drive on the host (XP Pro SP3) from a Win2K3 Server guest.

I created a new hard drive in the hardware list as a physical disk and selected just one of the partitions.

It all appears to work fine except if I create a file on the drive from the guest it doesn't show up on the host and vice versa.

Am I doing something wrong or just missing the point?

I also tried it with 'Mode: Independent' but that didn't make any difference.

As a sub-note the reason for trying this was that the host drive was shared via the network and just seems to have very sporadic access from the guest lately and is driving me mad! Errors of note in System Event Log:

"The server was unable to allocate a work item 1 times in the last 60 seconds."

"The server has detected an attempted Denial-Of-Service attack from client \\192.168.0.8, and has disconnected the connection."

Any ideas please?

[AWo]

Which Workstation Version do you use?

AWo

[Packs]

6.5.2

[AWo]

Have you checked the file NTFS rights? Add "Everyone" with at least read rights and try again.

AWo

[Packs]

Thanks for the quick replies unfortunately that didn't help. I'm logged in as an Administrator and Workstation is running as such.

The data drive security allows Administrators full access and I added Everyone with read access.

Again, when I power on VM, drive can be seen, I can create files and edit them on guest but they don't show up on the host? (and vice versa)

[continuum · Accepted solution]

Am I doing something wrong or just missing the point?

Yes

Never - and I mean never - use a physical drive for a VM when the partition also has assigned a driveletter inside the host.
This will corrupt your NTFS pretty soon.

[Packs]

Ah thanks! I better run chkdsk!

Can you shed any light on the network issue please? I recently reinstalled the O/S and had to switch to a PCI LAN card (from onboard as this was crashing the machine).

Many thanks.

[Packs]

I've fixed the other issue looking at this:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/124414

Must of done that when I last installed the O/S (many years ago!)