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Configuring IDE Drives

Virtual hard drives and CD-ROMs are added and removed using the IDE drives panel in the configuration editor. The content of a virtual hard drive may be stored in a file or in a set of existing partitions on a host hard disk. The virtual CD-ROM is connected to the CD-ROM device on the host.

Normally a virtual machine has at least one virtual hard drive (and in most cases also one virtual CD-ROM drive). If you have neither, you may still boot from a floppy. If you don't have a floppy either, the virtual machine will not be able to boot.

For more information on the different disk modes see our web site.

Follow these steps to add a virtual IDE drive:

  1. Open the VM configuration editor.
  2. Click the expansion button to the left of IDE drives.
  3. Click the IDE drive that you wish to define or modify.
    You can use any device type with any of the four slots. However, you should not install a device in the "slave" slots IDE:0.1 (also called P-S or Primary Slave) or IDE:1.1 (also called S-S or Secondary Slave) unless the corresponding master slot (IDE:0.0 and IDE:1.0 respectively) also contains a device. If you do this, the VM will not be able to boot, and you will be asked to correct the problem.
    A common convention is to use the first slot for a hard drive and the third slot for a CD-ROM drive.
  4. Click Install.
  5. Follow one set of steps below, depending on what you're adding.
  6. Click OK to exit the configuration editor, or continue to add or modify other features.

Follow these steps to install a hard drive stored in a file:

  1. Choose Virtual Disk as the disk type.
  2. Choose a disk mode.
    The default is persistent. The undoable mode may use additional disk space until changes are committed or discarded. Nonpersistent mode may also use additional temporary space.
  3. Enter a name for the disk.
  4. In the Capacity field, specify the maximum size for the disk file.
    The specified size is the maximum capacity of your disk. The actual disk file is initially much smaller, and grows as you add data to it, up to the specified maximum.
    The disk should be large enough to contain the guest operating system and any applications and data you will need. Choose the size carefully, because once a disk is created, its maximum size can never be changed (you can, however, add more virtual disks in unused slots).
  5. Click Create.
To install a CD-ROM:
  1. Follow the initial steps above to add an IDE drive.
  2. Choose CD-ROM as the disk type.
  3. Select which CD-ROM drive you want to be used by the virtual machine. Often, but not always, the device name for the CD-ROM is /dev/cdrom.

Some computers such as laptops have CD-ROM drives that can be removed. To disable access to the CD-ROM when the VM is powered on, uncheck the Start Connected box in the disk configuration panel. To disable or enable access to the CD-ROM drive while a virtual machine is running use the Settings > Removable Devices menu. This can also be done from within the virtual machine if the VMware Toolbox has been installed. See see our web site to download a copy of the tools.

To install a virtual hard drive stored in a set of existing partitions:

  1. Follow the initial steps above to add an IDE drive.
  2. Click Add
  3. Choose Existing Disk Partition as the disk type.
  4. Select which disk you want the virtual machine to use. The IDE devices are usually named /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, etc.
  5. Enter a path for the raw disk file in the Name. This file contains information about the disk being used, including its name and which partitions are available to the virtual machine.
  6. Click Create.
  7. Click the Partitions button to specify which disk partitions are accessible to the virtual machine.
The Hide read only partitions from the guest operating system option is useful if you are running multiple operating systems at the same time, and you are not running an advanced boot manager, such as PowerQuest's BootMagic or V Communication's System Commander. For example, if you are running Windows NT from a FAT partition, and you boot Windows 98 from another partition, Windows 98 sees the partition that Windows NT is running on, and attempts to repair that file system. This may damage your disk and/or cause your computer to crash. Partition Hiding is not made available if the guest operating system is MS-DOS or Linux because these operating systems do not attempt to automatically file check other FAT partitions.

Some advanced boot managers, but not basic boot managers such as LILO or NT MultiBoot, solve this problem by changing the partition type of all the partitions not needed by the operating system being booted to "unknown" type. If you are not using a boot manager, then selecting Disk Partition Hiding has the same effect.

When this option is enabled, only the partitions for which the virtual machine has Read/Write access are visible to the guest operating system. The other partitions are changed to "unknown" type. In addition, all writes to the Master Boot Record (MBR) where this information is recorded, are intercepted. This allows multiple operating systems to run on the same disk, but with different views of the same partitions.

Because of this feature, however, one of these advanced boot manager program run inside a virtual machine with Disk Partition Hiding enabled will not function properly. If you wish to use an advanced boot manager program, or install a new boot manager from within a virtual machine, then the Disk Partition Hiding option should be turned off.