UEFI/GPT Physical Partititon Map Undetected: Windows 7 Host, Ubuntu Guest

[sonicfrequency]

Hello VMWare Community,

Over  the past few months I've been banging my head against my keyboard. I've  done so much Google searching and forum trolling in hope to find an  answer to this problem. I would have to say I have absolutely nothing.

• I have a Dell Latitude e6410 with UEFI enabled bios, all latest UEFI/BIOS updates. I have VMWare  Workstation 8.

• I have a single GPT mapped HDD with 3 partitions:

          • 1. Windows 7 x64 NTFS OS installed as GPT.

          • 2. Ubuntu x64 EXT4 OS installed as GPT.

          • 3. Storage partition NTFS installed as GPT.

• If I press F12 at bootup I can see both OS GPT partitions in UEFI and boot from either natively.

• I want to be able to boot into either OS natively and have the flexibility of virtualizing Ubuntu through Windows 7.

Within  Windows, when I attempt to setup the Ubuntu VM from partition, I select "Use Physical  disk" I only see a single partition as though VMWare Workstation doesn't  detect the GPT partition table correctly. Perhaps VMWare is detecting the Dell BIOS and thinking the HDD is MBR format?

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

[continuum]

As far as I know you cant you use the vmdk-type "partitionedDevice" when you have GPT-disks.

Cant you add a second disk to your machine ?

[sonicfrequency]

Thank you for your reply! I couldnt find that in the documentation anywhere.

Unfortunately, it's a work machine with a single compartment for an HDD.

I suppose I will convert from GPT back to MBR using gdisk in Ubuntu.

Again, thank you very much!

Mat

[sonicfrequency]

If anyone else finds themselves in the same predicament:

• I used gdisk in Ubuntu to convert back from GPT > MBR disk.

• I used Partition Wizard Home 7.1 bootable disc to shift the Windows partition back over to the left most beginning sectors since the MSR and EFI partitions were wiped out and an 8MB MBR was created.

• I repaired Windows 7 with the OS boot disc & terminal bootrec commands so Windows 7 would boot fine. I also reinstalled Ubuntu with GRUB to the main disk MBR.

• I still could not get to the GRUB bootloader. The bootloader would fail with the virtual CPU or "disk in use" error. These errors occured regarless if I used the entire "physical disk" or individual "partition" during setup, and with GRUB either installed to the disk MBR or installed directly onto the Ubuntu partition.

• At this point, VirtualBox worked fine with a .vmdk created using the physical disk.

• I then rolled back to VMWare 7, with GRUB still installed to the root MBR & using the entire physical disk during virtualization setup.

SUCCESS!