Using a Physical/Raw disk as a primary or secondary drive on VMware Workstation

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to correctly add a Physical/Raw disk.

Symptoms:

• Unable to use a Physical/Raw disk as a Primary/Secondary drive on a virtual machine.
• When using a Physical/Raw Partition as a virtual machine, you see the message:
  
  Physical Disk is already in use.
  

Environment

VMware Workstation 8.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Windows)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 8.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 9.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Windows)
VMware Workstation 7.x (Linux)
VMware Workstation 11.x (for Linux)
VMware Workstation 10.x (Linux)

Cause

When the Physical Disk of host is referenced by others (for example, if the file is open or there are processes referring a file in the current physical disk or partition), it tries to dismount the volume first. However, there are files referenced in current physical disk or partition, and the open-disk status makes the operation fail.

For issues faced with VMware Workstation 7.x, 8.x, and 9.x, disklib does not make a strict check for independent-persistent disk (Raw disk added). If files are referenced in current disk, open-disk fails.

Resolution

To properly add a physical disk to a virtual machine:

1. Prepare the physical disk for the operation to avoid the conflict.
   • On a Windows system:
     1. Ensure that no programs or applications are using the physical disk.
     2. Remove the drive letter of the particular disk. Navigate to Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management > Change Drive Letter and Path > Remove.
        
        
   • On a Linux system:
     1. Open a terminal interface. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892).
     2. Run this command to list the partitions on the host:
        
        #cat/proc/partition
        
        
     3. Unmount the partition that needs to be added to the virtual machine:
        
        unmount path of the partition
        
        For example #unmount /dev/sda2
        
        
     4. Add the partition of the virtual machine.
        
        Note: If you want to mount the partition back on the host, power off the virtual machine, then mount the disk using the command: mount path of the partition mount path. For example: #mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/backupdisk.
        
        
2. Open the virtual machine settings from VM > Settings.
3. Click the Hardware tab.
4. Select Add > Hard disk.
5. Select Use a Physical Disk (for advanced users).
6. Select a Physical Disk > Device > Choose "PhysicalDrive#".
   
   Note: Select the entire disk or partition, as required.
   
   
7. Specify Disk file and click Finish.

Additional Information

Opening a command or shell prompt