Problems accessing physical HDD from VM

Essendon

Ok folks, I have Workstation 7.1.1 and need to be able to access my physical HDD from a guest OS. The physical OS is Win 7 64-bit and the guest OS is 2008 R2. When I go in to add a new HD to the guest, it let me add it but just after POST, the VM throws me the error you can see in the attachment. And then I have to kill the vmware.exe process in Task Manager since it just locks up.

Do I need to grant some kind of access to the guest OS?

1. I am running Workstation as an administrator.
2. I have tried Bridged/Host-only/NAT networking all with the same result.
3. The event logs on the host OS dont show any issues with the physical disks.

Help's appreciated, TIA.

Essendon

Sorry folks but I need to bump this, I havent quite worked this one out yet. MentholMoose, azjag, astorrs anyone?

MentholMoose

Is the drive in use?

Essendon

Yes it is, the .iso file that the VM uses is on this drive. I have tried both drives with the same result.

Devilsbane

Connect over C$? Thats how I always talk to my system.

MentholMoose

Essendon wrote: »

Yes it is, the .iso file that the VM uses is on this drive. I have tried both drives with the same result.

So you want to access your C: drive from inside the VM? If so I think you are using the wrong feature of Workstation. You should setup shared folders in Workstation, or you could use the C$ admin share like Devilsbane suggests.

Essendon

Ok thanks for the info. I just looked at that tiny messages icon in bottom right corner and there were a 5 error messages all saying - The network bridge on device dev vmnet0 is temporarily down because the bridged ethernet interface is down. VMware bridge protocol was unticked and is now ticked but I still cannot use c$ to access my physical machine?

azjag

I think this may be what you are looking for.
VMware Communities: new possible workaround for rawdisk...

An issue that arose with Windows Vista and 7 is the manner in which the OS's handle drive partitions. In essence if the OS see's the partition it will take control of it. This causes problems with workstation. Let me know if this answers your question.

However, after re-reading your post I don't know if this is going to directly answer your question. The error message you posted happens when you try to boot the vm, not when you try to access the C: drive from within the vm. Am I right?

Essendon

azjag, I'll elaborate and clarify. I get the error attached in the screenshot after I add the additional disk to the VM (while it's off) and boot it up. Additionally, when I create a new disk while the VM is running it gives me another similar error (cant recall what exactly, at work now and dont have access to the machine at home).

Can you please have a look at the last post I made, the one before this one. Thanks!

MentholMoose

Do you have multiple physical NICs on the host?

Essendon

MentholMoose wrote: »

Do you have multiple physical NICs on the host?

Just the one.

MentholMoose

Try reinstalling Workstation.

Essendon

Ok, I'll do that when I get home tonight.

azjag

Essendon wrote: »

I get the error attached in the screen-shot after I add the additional disk to the VM (while it's off) and boot it up.

Additionally, when I create a new disk while the VM is running it gives me another similar error (cant recall what exactly, at work now and don't have access to the machine at home).

Call me crazy but i still think the link I gave you is pertinent to this issue. It is closely related to the issue you describe and the error messages also match up with process you are following.

But if you are indeed trying to reach your local C: drive try a few other things first. Can you access the internet from the guest machine? Can you ping your host PC's ip address from the guest. Can you ping the guest IP from your host. if not there is a error in your network setup in the vmworkstation.

MentholMoose

azjag wrote: »

Call me crazy but i still think the link I gave you is pertinent to this issue. It is closely related to the issue you describe and the error messages also match up with process you are following.

If he's trying to attach an unused physical drive to a VM, then I agree. If he's trying to SHARE a physical drive with a VM (e.g. the host's C: drive), he should use the shared folders feature since you can't attach a physical drive that's in use to a VM.

For the network errors, networking in Workstation should just work, so perhaps something got messed up with the installation or configuration.

Essendon

For the record folks, a reinstall of Workstation has fixed the issue. Thanks all!