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This Question is Answered 6 Replies Last post: Feb 18, 2006 9:47 AM by ARE

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Does VMWare support SATA?

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Feb 14, 2006 4:46 PM Sujud 2 posts since Feb 14, 2006 Dear All, I have HP xW9300 with 2 SATA drives. The first drive is used for host OS which is RHEL WS3 Update 5. On top of it is VMWare 5.5.1. The second drive is expected tobe used for the guest OS which is Windows XP Pro. However, the guest installation is stopped with a message "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer". I have provided additional SATA driver (nVidia nForce Storage Controller) which worked if I installed Windows not in VMWare environment. I can find some discussion on VMWare + SATA drive in this forum but I am not clear yet. Does VMWare support SATA drive? Thanks, Sujud Re: Does VMWare support SATA? Feb 14, 2006 4:51 PM KevinG 16,256 posts since Jan 8, 2004 Serial ATA (SATA) drives are supported on the host system as long as you are using the "virtual disk" feature. Virtual disks exist as files on the host filesystem, and therefore can be accessed by the VMware Workstation, GSX / VMware Server software. ACE or Player. SATA physical disks are not supported. Because there are only IDE and SCSI devices in the current device model, SATA drives used as physical disks will not work at all in VMware Workstation or GSX / VMware Server, ACE or Player Re: Does VMWare support SATA? Feb 14, 2006 4:57 PM ksc 273 posts since Sep 21, 2005 Workstation is a hosted environment - this means you can use SATA if your host supports SATA. (And since you are booting into RHEL, your host must support it). Really, your question is if a guest can use a raw SATA hard drive. Yes, but not the way you are trying... Your guest must use a VMware virtual hard drive (IDE or SCSI) - period. When you create a new virtual machine, you add one of these adapters there, and the driver your guest uses is the one that matches these virtual hard drives. Now, you can configure those virtual hard drives to be backed by an actual hard drive. But the guest still sees an IDE or SCSI drive. See instructions here:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/351842 (1 of 4)12/3/2004 6:24:09 PM

VMware Communities: Does VMWare support SATA? ...

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws5/doc/ws_disk_raw_install_os.html I repeat - you are NOT installing SATA drivers into the guest - VMware does not emulate SATA hardware. You install IDE or SCSI (buslogic or lsilogic) drivers into your guest, and you configure the vmware disk to be backed by a raw partition. All that said... why do you want your guest on a raw partition? There are very, very few reasons why this is actually useful. Re: Does VMWare support SATA? Feb 14, 2006 5:38 PM in response to: ksc KevinG 16,256 posts since Jan 8, 2004 More information about why you can't use SATA as raw http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_disk_raw.html http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=xuhyWa*h&p_lva=1002&p_faqid=1184 Re: Does VMWare support SATA? Feb 14, 2006 6:45 PM in response to: KevinG ksc 273 posts since Sep 21, 2005 Whoops - I stand corrected. SATA and raw don't mix. Close, but not quite. Thanks, KevinG. (On second thought, I think I recall some posts about wrapping Linux ioctls to fake things into working. Which should work, those ioctls are the only dependencies. But don't try it.) Use virtual disks. Re: Does VMWare support SATA? Feb 15, 2006 1:57 AM in response to: KevinG Sujud 2 posts since Feb 14, 2006 Thanks for the explanation. I (as ksc also suggested) will probably just use virtual disk. Thanks.

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VMware Communities: Does VMWare support SATA? ...

Re: Does VMWare support SATA? Feb 18, 2006 9:47 AM in response to: ksc ARE 2 posts since Dec 9, 2005 Why would I want a Raw/SATA Windows Guest on a Linux/Windows-hosted Platform? Dual-Boot Capability Let me count the ways: 1) VMware's virtual graphics adaptor emulation may not support many modes and features available on advanced graphics adaptors. 2) VMware's virtual sound card adaptor does not support many features on the newer sound cards. 3) VMware's virtual CD/DVD Drivers may not support all modes on some newer Drives. 4) For special applications (e.g. Video Editing), performance under VMware may be inadequate to the task even though such usage might only account for 5-10% of the Guest OS Usage. 5) Software Developers may want to optimize applications to run well in both environments - using exactly the same Guest. 6) Long term (over five years) users of VMware who have implemented production dual-boot machines will be forced to purchase additional and otherwise unneeded drives for which they may not have bays when they upgrade to new SATA-only machines just to keep compatibility 7) Consultants who have multiple Clients for whom they have implemented dual boot capabilities using VMware with production systems will be severely impacted if they have to port Guest OS's to virtual drives even if the Client accepts the transition. How does one clone a virtual machine on a virtual partition so that it can be installed as a stand-alone machine on a non-VMWare enabled platform? 8) Those of us evaluating multiple Guest OS's may often need to compare raw vs virtual performance and capabilities before actual implementation or recommendation to Clients. 9) There are times when one wishes to do testing on a dual-boot Guest in an environment that doesn't put the Host at risk (e.g. turning off access to Host Drives, say in an environment when one SATA drive is dedicated to the Host and the other to Guests OS's. 10) VMware is abandoning the valid wishes and needs of it Customers which is never a good predictor of future success. I could think of more, but the major point is that VMware certainly has the expertise to support raw-partition Guests on SATA Drives but elects not to for whatever reason thereby risking losing long-term Customers and the invaluable promotion they give to VMware products. Those of us who have both dual-boot systems and have spent many, many hours testing and issuing detailed support requests against beta releases, in effect doing Quality Control without compensation to help better the product, are among the most experienced and knowledgeable sources for potential customers. Leaving us "out in the cold" to reduce VMware's need to support such configurations is short sighted and raises doubts about VMware's commitment to new customers throughout the product line.
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VMware Communities: Does VMWare support SATA? ...

I, for one, will not purchase any upgrades or participate in beta-evaluation simply because the product is no longer useful in the manner I have been using it since Release 1 and most regrettably so.
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