[CentOS] VMware ver 1.03

Lamar Owen lowen at pari.edu
Sat May 12 14:21:00 UTC 2007


On Saturday 12 May 2007, Barton Callender wrote:
> I'm for not giving accurate information, I am able to create new virtual
> machines as a non-root user.  I have windowsXP and Ubuntu installed on my
> hard drive as well.  So I am trying to create a new virtual machine with
> custom settings, and using my hard drive, so I can boot windowsXP or Ubuntu
> while Im in CentOS 5.  But when I reach to the end of the settings it tells
> me I do not have permission to access that file.

Please read the VMware documentation about 'dual boot' installs (specifically, 
the Virtual Machine Guide, section "Using Disks in a Virtual 
Machine"; "Configuring Hard Disk Storage in a Virtual Machine"; "Disk Types: 
Virtual and Physical"; "Physical (Raw) Disk" and the paragraph immediately 
below the caution (not counting the caution, this is the third paragraph of 
the section).  

Note that Windows XP will want to reactivate every time you boot in the VM 
after having booted the hard drive, and vice versa (XP is seeing a different 
PC each time; the bare host hardware when native booted, and a PC 
called 'VMware' when booted inside VMware Server).  Also note that the 
hardware VMware server presents to the VM's is radically different from the 
hardware the bare OS sees, especially the video card, network card, audio 
driver, and motherboard chipset.  VMware recommends that you do not do this, 
in other words, and you can cause serious issues on the dual booted OS's if 
you do it.  

Now, if you want to always boot these others under VMware server, you can just 
do that; but dual-booting and VMware running of the VM's is going to cause 
the guest OS's (especially XP) loads of problems.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Chief Information Officer
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu



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