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Hiding Read-only Disk Partitions for Raw Disks

You can hide read-only disk partitions from the virtual machine using the Configuration Editor. Doing so can be useful if you are:

• Using raw disk partitions
• Running multiple operating systems at the same time
• Not using an advanced boot manager (such as PowerQuest BootMagic or V Communication System Commander)

For example, if you are running Windows NT from a disk partition that is formatted with the FAT file system and you boot Windows 98 from another partition, Windows 98 sees the partition that Windows NT is running under and attempts to repair that file system. This may damage your disk or cause your computer to crash.

To solve this problem, VMware GSX Server provides an option — Hide read-only partitions for raw disks — that allows you to hide the type of read-only disk partitions. Similar to some advanced boot managers, this option solves the problem by changing the partition type to unknown for all read-only partitions that are not necessary for the operating system that is being booted. The effect of enabling this option is that the guest operating system only sees the partitions for which the virtual machine has read/write access. This option also intercepts all write operations to the master boot record (MBR), allowing multiple operating systems to run on the same disk but with different views of the same partitions.

To enable this option:

1. Select File > Open and open the virtual machine configuration file (.cfg) you want to modify.
2. Select Settings > Configuration Editor from the console window.
3. Click Misc in the left-hand panel.
4. Select the Hide read-only partitions for raw disks option.
5. Click OK.

Related Topics:

• Setting up virtual machines on a disk partition
• Assigning access rights to disk partitions

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