Please report issues with physical disk feature in WS 8

[continuum]

I get the impression that the code in WS 8 that handles the usage of physical disks with a VM is a regression of what we had with earlier versions.

So far I noticed:

• "disk is in use" message in scenarios that were no problem with earllier versions - for me just trying to start the VM a few times helps.
  For other users this seems to be the end of the story ...

• Horrible performance. factory new physical disks show write delays similar to very very fragmented and old snapshot trees
  
  
  2011-09-30T06:44:56.859+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 2.871 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:56.875+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 2.873 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:56.890+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 2.874 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:56.984+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 6.216 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:57.328+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 3.009 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:57.328+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 3.030 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:57.421+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 3.139 seconds (ok)
  2011-09-30T06:44:57.421+02:00| vmx| I120: scsi0:0: Command WRITE(10) took 2.044 seconds (ok)
  
  

If you experience similar issues please post here.
I do not want to discuss details here - justy collect a list of the new problems with WS 8

Please also include a link to your original post - if there is one.

Thanks Ulli

[continuum]

do you rebuild the vmdk-descriptors for the physical drive before starting the VM ?
if not - try that.

Honestly - if you want to use physical drives a lot don t use Windows 7 as the host OS - use 2003 or Linux

[Jurasix]

Thanks for reply,

no I did not rebuild the vmdk-descriptors. I just tested same Host-OS with the same vmx and vmdk files but different versions of VMware-Player.

Do you know if there are some specific issues concerning vmdk-descriptor parameters since version 4.0.0 of VMware-Player ? Until version 3.1.6 it was possible to open the physical drive (even the system drive with running Windows on it) at least with read-only attribute. Since version 4.0.0, obviously, vmware has "improved" the code and it does not work anymore, or works other way.

Actually, the vmdk-file is created with my application from scratch using physical parameters of the drive. If I try to build the vmdk-file from within VMwarePlayer using option Add-hard disk---use a physical disk---use entire disk (PhysicalDrive0), I can do it, no problem. But after starting the VMware-Player I get the same error: W32Util_DismountVolumes: FSTCL_LOCK_VOLUME failed ... Just the same situation as I described before.

Therefore I think this error-type does not depend on the specific parameters in vmdk-descriptor.

Anyway, thank you for reply.

Jurasix

[continuum]

let me see one of your generated descriptors please

[Jurasix]

Ok,

this file is created from scratch with my application (works untill version 3.1.6):

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

CID=c9a55d1d

parentCID=ffffffff

createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description

RW 117231408 FLAT "\\.\PhysicalDrive0" 0

# The Disk Data Base

# DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "27544"

ddb.geometry.heads = "224"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "19"

ddb.adapterType = "ide"

This file was a rebuild from within VMware-Player v. 4.0.0 for the same hard disk (does not work since version 4.0.0):

# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

encoding="windows-1252"

CID=fffffffe

parentCID=ffffffff

isNativeSnapshot="no"

createType="fullDevice"

# Extent description

RW 117231408 FLAT "\\.\PhysicalDrive0" 0 partitionUUID \\?\ide#diskst360020a_______________________________3.39____#5&13089ca0&0&0.0.0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

# The Disk Data Base

#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"

ddb.longContentID = "1303dcb42aaff567964999dafffffffe"

ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9b ed 3d ac fc-4d 4d 14 2e b3 25 08 d7"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "16383"

ddb.geometry.heads = "16"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.geometry.biosCylinders = "1024"

ddb.geometry.biosHeads = "224"

ddb.geometry.biosSectors = "19"

ddb.adapterType = "ide"

Thanks,

Jurasix

[continuum]

try with the red part removed

RW 117231408 FLAT "\\.\PhysicalDrive0" 0 partitionUUID  \\?\ide#diskst360020a_______________________________3.39____#5&13089ca0&0&0.0.0#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

[Jurasix]

I have done it, exactly as you suggest,...  no effect at all.

Same error-situation: disk cannot be opened.

Thank you very much for your efforts!

Jurasix

[quiettime]

Try taking the disk offline as I mentioned much earlier in this thread. Also you must be running vmware as an administrator to access a physical disk.

[Jurasix]

Hi,

unfortunately I cannot take this disk offline because of running OS on it. Yes, I start VMware-Player as administrator... So this is, as I can see, not a trivial issue.

Thanks for reply,

Jurasix

[NetSpider]

Do you use dynamic disks?

[Jurasix]

No, I am using just simple conventional IDE physical harddisk with 2 partitions on it. First is the boot partition 100MB and the second one is system partition.

Thanks,

Jurasix

[continuum]

unfortunately I cannot take this disk offline because of running OS on it.

Then you can not use Windows 7 as the host OS - such stunts only work with 2003 or Linux

[Jurasix]

That is exactly the point 😉  VMware-Player untill version 3.1.6 could do it, no problem. I need this feature (physical disk access in read-only mode) because my application for data-backup works under linux. So, with VMware-Player I could take a backup-image of the system even during the running Windows. Of course I can downgrade to the VMware-Player version older then 4.0.0, but in this particular case, may be hardware conflicts, only VMware-Player 4.0.0 and newer can run on my system. This case is really very strange: But nevertheless it is clear that the farther development of vmware is more restrictive. Therefore I think I should consider any other alternative, may be open-source, for my software to be able to access the physical drive from within the virtual envirunmen.

Thanks,

Jurasix

[continuum]

With Virtual Box running on a Windows 7 host you can make your live easier. VBOX manages physical disks better than VMware - at least they better work around the new restrictions on Windows 7 and later.

Here I still use win2003 enterprise as the host because I need physical disk access regularly.

[Jurasix]

Thank you for the info. As far as I know VirtualBox is under the GNU GPL ?

[VA00]

More than 3 years has passed since problem has been announced. This week, after fresh install of Windows 7 64, I tried to add existing virtual (Ubuntu, using physical partitions) machine to VMwarePlayer (5.0.2 build-1031769). Infamous error  "Physical Disk is already in use" appeared again. Again, Windows-managed RAID1 is source of the problem. Noteworthy, other physical disks are used for VMware, separate disks for RAID1.

I marked mirrored disks "Offline" and VM started without error.

I tried to enable mirroring again while VM is running, but curiously, disk has been marked as "Foreign" meanwhile. I took it Online again, and now I have two separate disks - mirroring has gone.

[VA00]

I'm very happy to inform, that bug discussed above has been fixed in VMwarePlayer 6.0.0. Now I have two mirrored Windows dynamic disks, and simultaneously running virtual Linux with physical access to partitions on other disk.

[NetSpider]

Is this bug fixed in VMware Workstation 10?

[JimmyW]

This is not quite on point, but I had no issues with physical disks from VMware 7 through 9.  Now, I have a problem with 10, as I cannot map them as writable.  I posted here: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/456479. I usually can get around the "disk in use" error with a host system reboot.