enable snapshots for vm with physical ide disk

[WarnerP]

I'm trying to figure out how to reenable snapshoting for a VM that I added a physical IDE disk to.  I understand that snapshots don't work with physical disks and I don't want it the physical disk snapshoted.   If I turn off and disable the phyiscal disk, I can snapshot but I can't if the VM is on with the physical disk attached.  From what I've read, it looks like I should just be able to set the drive as persistent, however, I don't see the advanced button when setting up the disk as is referenced here

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws4/doc/disks_add_ws.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_add_raw.html

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/ws80-using.pdf

I can set he mode to persistent with a new virtual disk, just not a physical disk.

I've also tried adding

ide0:0.redo = ""

ide0:0.mode = "independent-persistent"

to the vmx as referenced here

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/295179

with out luck.

I'm using Workstation 8.0.3 on Windows 7.  This drive is not assigned in Windows 7 and is the only IDE drive in the box.  Is this actually still possible or am I misunderstanding something?

[continuum]

Hi and welcome
I am unsure wether I should tell you the trick.
With one physical drive only this is really dangerous - if possible find workarounds !!!!

DISCLAIMER: dont do it - it does not make sense and I predict corruption pretty soon

Anyway:
plan A: remove the line

ide0:0deviceType = "rawDisk"

plan B:
use vmrun to take snapshots

I just see you use Windows 7. As far as I know Windows 7 will not allow this anyway

[WarnerP]

Thanks for the response.  I understand your concern.  I'd prefer not to have to use an IDE and would much prefer this to be a RAID.

it looks like removing that  line didn't help.  It does enable snapshots, but then the disk vmdk  can't be opened as the file isn't a virtual disk.

After some more digging this morning, I'm just going to go the Virtual Disk route for this.

[continuum]

> After some more digging this morning, I'm just going to go the Virtual Disk route for this.

thats a wise choice

> but then the disk vmdk  can't be opened as the file isn't a virtual disk.

thats unexpected - would you mind an post the vmx-file after your modification ?

[WarnerP]

I decided to go the virtual disk route.  I was mistaken about the  physical disk being an IDE.  It's a SATA but the VMX listed it as an IDE.   I double checked inside the box.

I'm having a similar problem though.  I have 2 disk assigned to this VM.  The first is 20GB virtual disk for the OS, the second is a 300GB virtual disk for  storage. I set the 300GB storage disk up as virtual independent-persistent so that it was excluded from snapshots,  but again, snapshots don't work at all.  Is there something else that needs to be done to take a snapshot and exclude a disk?  Below is the VMX.

.encoding = "windows-1252"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "8"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
memsize = "1024"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.fileName = "FreeNAS 8.2 64-bit.vmdk"
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "T:\iso\FreeNAS-8.2.0-BETA3-x64.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet0.wakeOnPcktRcv = "FALSE"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
usb.present = "TRUE"
ehci.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge0.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge4.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge4.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge4.functions = "8"
pciBridge5.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge5.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge5.functions = "8"
pciBridge6.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge6.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge6.functions = "8"
pciBridge7.present = "TRUE"
pciBridge7.virtualDev = "pcieRootPort"
pciBridge7.functions = "8"
vmci0.present = "TRUE"
hpet0.present = "TRUE"
displayName = "FreeNAS 8.2 64-bit"
guestOS = "freebsd-64"
nvram = "FreeNAS 8.2 64-bit.nvram"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
powerType.powerOff = "hard"
powerType.powerOn = "hard"
powerType.suspend = "hard"
powerType.reset = "hard"
extendedConfigFile = "FreeNAS 8.2 64-bit.vmxf"
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:84:b0:77"
vmci0.id = "226799735"
uuid.location = "56 4d 28 3b a1 1d 2e ba-74 ed 04 a4 0d 84 b0 77"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 28 3b a1 1d 2e ba-74 ed 04 a4 0d 84 b0 77"
cleanShutdown = "FALSE"
replay.supported = "FALSE"
replay.filename = ""
scsi0:0.redo = ""
pciBridge0.pciSlotNumber = "17"
pciBridge4.pciSlotNumber = "21"
pciBridge5.pciSlotNumber = "22"
pciBridge6.pciSlotNumber = "23"
pciBridge7.pciSlotNumber = "24"
scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "16"
usb.pciSlotNumber = "32"
ethernet0.pciSlotNumber = "33"
ehci.pciSlotNumber = "34"
vmci0.pciSlotNumber = "35"
usb:1.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
vmotion.checkpointFBSize = "33554432"
usb:1.speed = "2"
usb:1.deviceType = "hub"
usb:1.port = "1"
usb:1.parent = "-1"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

scsi0:1.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:1.fileName = "S:\FreeNAS 8.2 64-bit-0.vmdk"
scsi0:1.mode = "independent-persistent"
ide0:0.present = "FALSE"
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
scsi0:1.redo = ""
usb:0.present = "TRUE"
usb:0.deviceType = "hid"
usb:0.port = "0"
usb:0.parent = "-1"

[dragon_788]

My workaround when I have a persistent drive attached is to power down the VM. Then I can create snapshots, then boot the VM back up. It sucks because I would prefer to just have the persistent drive excluded from snapshots while the rest of the VM is snapshotted, and I thought this was the intended behavior when assigning a drive as persistent.