Justin, I am not sure if I got your question correctly. But let me try to answer anyway. vmware is just a software which emulates i386 architecture. on top of that you need actual OS image (either 2GB file as as file system or RAW disk partition). -> If you are in Linux(/dev/hda2, as real Linux ) , using vmware and guest OS is win2k ====================================================================================== You can install Win2k on raw disk partition (such as on this removable drive first partition /dev/hdb1). Preferably through (inside vmware machine writing to /dev/hdb1). In this case Actual Windows install will be sitting on raw disk partition and you can setup LILO to access this(win2K) at boot time, just like you have dual boot system. VMWARE at startup will see LILO prompt and you can select Win2k to load in VMWARE window. If you have installed windows this way and if you are lucky enough you can boot Win2k(natively, not through Linux vmware) at boot time just like dual boot system. Basically what happened here is window will see that a harddrive is moved from one machine (vmware i386) to another machine(your machine real hardware) and you know what are the chances of that to work. I had pretty good success in IDE drives, but this process failed if you have SCSI drives. i.e (win2k installed through VMWARE inside Linux won't boot natively). VMWARE guys said this will improve inf future for SCSI drives also. Now on your questions: I think you can have one removable harddrive and let's say setup raw partitions like that. (in terms of linux.) /dev/hdb1 NT/Win2K NTFS /dev/hdb2 Linux(RedHat 7.x) EXT2 /dev/hdb3 SuSe (7.x) EXT2 and so on. Now from Linux station , install Win2k on /dev/hdb1 as a raw device. You may edit LILO here to access if this is available. From Windows station: you can install Linux(RH and Suse) on different physical partitions. (/dev/hdb2 /dev/hdb3, win windows they will appear differently) I have never tried windows vmware though! But I am assuming this is doable. You can mix above combination and let's say you install all VMWARE OS from Linux station. (i.e Windows, RH, Suse all from same vmware under Linux). Now if you move this drive to Windows station it is upto Windows station how it can handle this harddrive and there are chances that you can see all these OS from Windows also. Again what is happening here is Windows will see that you are trying to boot from Harddisk (/dev/hdb) that was earlier used in some other machine (VMWARE i386 machine under Linux). So these images may not have proper drivers etc. However since you are using vmware on Windows to access these partition from windows chances are you can see better results. So basically if you are using raw partition you don't have to worry much about File System type, all you have to worry about drivers and such issues. Hope this helps. Rajeev Justin Funke wrote: > I am setting up a test environment and hope someone here can save me hours > of trial and error. > > - A Windows 2000 Pro station with a removable hard drive bay running vmware. > > - A separate RedHat 7.1 station with a removable hard drive bay running > vmware. > > Is there a way to have the vmware images (virtual servers) on a removable > drive and be able to use it switching back and forth from both stations? > > If yes what file format on the drive would you recommend? (I'm thinking FAT > would be the only chance of it working) > > Thanks, > > Justin > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > This list is provided by the SecurityFocus ARIS analyzer service. > For more information on this free incident handling, management > and tracking system please see: http://aris.securityfocus.com > > > > > -- ******************************************************************** Rajeev Kumar (rajeevat_private) http://www.rajeevnet.com ******************************************************************** -- PGP PUBLIC KEY -- http://www.rajeevnet.com/crypto/mypubkey ----------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided by the SecurityFocus ARIS analyzer service. For more information on this free incident handling, management and tracking system please see: http://aris.securityfocus.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 18 2001 - 10:27:51 PDT