I'm running VMware Fusion 1.1.3 on an iMac with OS X 10.5.4. When I set up Fusion, I choose to make use of shared folders which gave me a shared documents and download folder between my Mac and the VM.
I also have bootcamp on this iMac, but do not have my VM pointed to it. I want the BC partition mostly for games and the other VM mostly for applications.
So, I have other applications running in my VM that have their own databases such as Quicken for Windows, and no I don't want to run Quicken for the Mac. Because the VM is in essence one big file, I would like to store this data somewhere outside the VM. I assume that I could store it in one of the already shared folders over even share another one through the VM to the Mac disk. However, the Mac will never use these files.
I was wondering if a better way would be to access the bootcamp partition while in regular VM and use that as a storage site for these other apps. However, I'm not sure that's even possible. I thought that since this partition was already formatted with NTFS that it might be a better solution that storing the data on the Mac's OS X formatted disk even though I am doing that with my documents and downloads, etc.
So, can I even get to the BC partition to use it as storage while in the VM and is that any better solution than just storing the data on the Mac Disk?
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Alright, tested good, so here's what I did.
Under Mac OS X, the ntfs-3g package requires another install - MacFuse from google. ( http://code.google.com/p/m
After these installs, you SHOULD get an auto-mount of your BootCamp partition. Let me know how it goes. If it doesn't mount, you can create an fstab file to control the mounting of this partition. In fact, I plan to do this to prevent automounting...essentially
I decided to go ahead and give your suggestion a shot and I noticed that the BC drive already shows up on my desktop with a name of "untitled". When I click on it I can open it and see the files inside. In my way of thinking that means the drive is already mounted. Will your suggestions get me anything I don't already have?
It worked... although after I did the installs I didn't notice anything different because I was already mounting the BC partition. But when I did a Get Info, I noticed that the Sharing and Permissions is now Custom access instead of Read Only.
I tested this by creating and deleting a folder on the BC partition. Then I fired up my VM and was able to create a shared folder using Fusion's Share folder feature to add a new folder to the Z: drive that is a share to the BC partition. I then copied a bunch of files and folders to the new share and then rebooted my Mac into the BC partition. All the files and folders were there.
Have you had any trouble with any corruption of data using this method?
I wonder if I'll be able to take a snapshot of the VM or not? When I was taking to the VMware techs they alluded to the fact that there was a way to do what I was wanting to do, but they wouldn't elaborate on it. They did say that if I was to link to the BC partition that I would not be able to suspend the VM or do a snapshot... probably not a bug deal but still something to consider. Of course I can do shares to regular folders on the Mac disk and I am able to suspend and do snapshots.
I was not aware of any limitations in snapshot functionality due to mounting an external partition. In fact, that seems very odd to me...but they're the experts...
Otherwise, I'm glad this worked for you. I would not expect that you'd have ANY issues with corruption. I think you'll find it just as stable as plugging in a USB drive (if not more stable). Just remember that this data is still on the same physical drive as your OSX and Fusion VM. You'll still want to back it up regularly.
Here's what the VMware guy said when he responded to me last:
The guest can't get at the Boot Camp partition by itself, but it can if Fusion (and you) let it - that's how a Boot Camp virtual machine works. However, unless you already have a Boot Camp virtual machine (and can therefore leverage the raw disk .vmdk), it may be tricky for a novice to set up.
jhyiesla: Using a Boot Camp partition would have some advantages over a HGFS shared folder (speed and stability), but also some disadvantages (trickier to set up, you can no longer suspend or snapshot the virtual machine without risk of disk corruption).
My guess is that he was speaking about doing something within Fusion to accomplish this, although he never did respond with how to actually implement this "tricky" solution. My suspicion is that this limitation would not apply with the solution that you provided since all we have really done is to make the BC partition non-readoly and created another shared folder sitting on the Mac like I did with documents, downloads and desktop.
Anyway...thanx for your effort. I will award all points to you.
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by: jeff_trentPosted on 2008-09-02 at 13:03:02ID: 22371048
I set my Shared folders path to my OSX Root folder. Now, I have access to the entire disk. It's a pain to have to drill down through /Users/<user.name>/Documents