VMWare users?

**Cander** · May 19th, 2003, 03:33 PM

Hey. Got a question on VMWare. When it sets up the virtual hard dive, does it also create a virtual Master Boot REcord? I just want to be double extra sure it wouldnt do anything to my real HD MBR if I install Linux or whatever. I am pretty sure that the real MBR doesnt get touched, but I just want to be 100% sure.

On a related note, anyone got links to original MS-DOS disks so can isntall a virtual of that?

**wrack** · May 19th, 2003, 07:11 PM

Originally posted by Cander
Hey. Got a question on VMWare. When it sets up the virtual hard dive, does it also create a virtual Master Boot REcord? I just want to be double extra sure it wouldnt do anything to my real HD MBR if I install Linux or whatever. I am pretty sure that the real MBR doesnt get touched, but I just want to be 100% sure.

On a related note, anyone got links to original MS-DOS disks so can isntall a virtual of that?

I am prettysure that it wont affect ur real MBR...I have all 3 original disks for MS-DOS but not sure how would I give it 2 u...Do u know of any utility which makes an image of a disk and I send u that images and then u can extract them to a floppy...

Let me know or send me an email if u r interested...

Cheers...

**Cander** · May 19th, 2003, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by wrack
I am prettysure that it wont affect ur real MBR...I have all 3 original disks for MS-DOS but not sure how would I give it 2 u...Do u know of any utility which makes an image of a disk and I send u that images and then u can extract them to a floppy...

Let me know or send me an email if u r interested...

Cheers...

No its ok. I actually found my old disks in a box.

**wrack** · May 20th, 2003, 08:43 AM

Originally posted by Cander
No its ok. I actually found my old disks in a box.

kewl...

**Zaei** · May 20th, 2003, 10:08 AM

Wouldnt be a very good virtual machine if it wrote to your REAL drives... unless of course you have it set up to(something about adding a physical drive to your virtual machine... dont remember exactly, if you havent done it, you dont have to worry)).

Z.

**parksie** · May 20th, 2003, 10:21 AM

I use physical drives with VMware. Use it as a universal file-reader.

Assume want to have read/write access to an ext3 partition under Windows:

Install Debian under VMware, with physical partition added to setup. Mount that drive, get it working. Using Samba, expose the drive mount, map network drive on the host, sorted.

Have to be running VMware for that, but it's worked *very* well for me.

**matheson** · May 27th, 2003, 04:07 AM

no ur right vmware does use virtuall mbr's thats the whole idea of the software, so that you don't have to rebuild/lose any information to swap os's or testing enviornments

**VisionIT** · May 27th, 2003, 12:22 PM

Anyone had any trouble with Redhat 8 on VMware or VirtualPC?

I can't seem to install mine properly without running a manual install, which takes ages!

**siyan** · May 27th, 2003, 03:16 PM

Originally posted by parksie
I use physical drives with VMware. Use it as a universal file-reader.

Assume want to have read/write access to an ext3 partition under Windows:

Install Debian under VMware, with physical partition added to setup. Mount that drive, get it working. Using Samba, expose the drive mount, map network drive on the host, sorted.

Have to be running VMware for that, but it's worked *very* well for me.

Seems rather long winded just to get a file though...

Gah. I should hold Bill gates at gunpoint and force him to release an NTFS RFC and an update to Windows that lets it read ext2/3, et. al....

Cause I don't want to use FAT32 forever.

**parksie** · May 27th, 2003, 05:53 PM

There's a filesystem driver for ext2 for 98 I think, don't know about NT.

**siyan** · May 27th, 2003, 06:14 PM

Originally posted by parksie
There's a filesystem driver for ext2 for 98 I think, don't know about NT.

too bad both 98 and ext2 are surpassed...makes that driver useless...

**parksie** · May 27th, 2003, 06:49 PM

If you want read-only access, you can read an ext3 drive using an ext2 driver.

But nowadays people don't just use ext{2,3}, there's reiserfs, xfs, jfs, etc., etc.

**siyan** · May 27th, 2003, 07:19 PM

I'm acutally somewhat surprised that nobody has programmed full-access support for ext2/3/XFS/JFS et. al. in NT...

Aren't those open standards anyways?

**parksie** · May 27th, 2003, 08:17 PM

ext{2,3}, reiserfs, all open.

XFS and JFS are open, I think, at least the source code is, whether the concepts are up for debate is up to SGI and IBM.

But there is no real reason why someone shouldn't put together a driver. With time I could probably make one.

**siyan** · May 27th, 2003, 08:22 PM

If you could put something like that together you'd be my hero.

At least for a while

**Kzin** · May 28th, 2003, 05:06 AM

Originally posted by siyan
Seems rather long winded just to get a file though...

Gah. I should hold Bill gates at gunpoint and force him . . .

If you ever get him in that position could you squeeze the trigger a couple of times from me to tell him what I think of the stability of the registry . . .

**Kzin** · May 28th, 2003, 05:08 AM

Originally posted by Cander
Hey. Got a question on VMWare. When it sets up the virtual hard dive, does it also create a virtual Master Boot REcord? I just want to be double extra sure it wouldnt do anything to my real HD MBR if I install Linux or whatever. I am pretty sure that the real MBR doesnt get touched, but I just want to be 100% sure.

On a related note, anyone got links to original MS-DOS disks so can isntall a virtual of that?

As you've probably gathered by now it doesn't touch your HD MBR

**Kzin** · May 28th, 2003, 05:10 AM

Originally posted by VisionIT
Anyone had any trouble with Redhat 8 on VMware or VirtualPC?

I can't seem to install mine properly without running a manual install, which takes ages!

I've got Redhat 8.0 on VMware 3 without trouble

**plenderj** · May 28th, 2003, 05:44 AM

Just have to say - I loooove using VMWare

**VisionIT** · May 28th, 2003, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by Kzin
I've got Redhat 8.0 on VMware 3 without trouble

Okay m8y... thanks. That's all i need to know. I think VMware dislikes my RAID setup, which is why it freezes during setup.

I've just tried it on VirtualPC by Connectix. It didn't work there either! The Linux discs work fine on a clean install though, as it's running on one of the servers at the mo.

I'll keep trying!

Regards,

Paul.

**Cander** · May 28th, 2003, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by plenderj
Just have to say - I loooove using VMWare

I would too if I could stop fubaring the mandrake installation under VMWare.

Ill get it right tonight

**Kzin** · Jun 15th, 2003, 12:51 PM

Originally posted by plenderj
Just have to say - I loooove using VMWare

Restrain yourself Jamie

*wags finger*

I get two problems with VMWare 4 - VMs stop responding to the mouse for blocks of maybe 8-10 seconds quite oftern with is tedious and the NAT network connection is very slow and unreliable. Does anyone else get these problems?

**VisionIT** · Jun 15th, 2003, 01:18 PM

Originally posted by Kzin
Restrain yourself Jamie *wags finger*

I get two problems with VMWare 4 - VMs stop responding to the mouse for blocks of maybe 8-10 seconds quite oftern with is tedious and the NAT network connection is very slow and unreliable. Does anyone else get these problems?

Oh yes...

**Kzin** · Jun 16th, 2003, 05:02 AM

Originally posted by VisionIT
Oh yes...

Both problems?

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