Boot vm stored on external hard drive ExFAT (doesn't work)
Posted: 2. Dec 2021, 02:26
So heres a quick summary of my situation and Problem.
Situation:
I have two hosts one is running MacOS and one Windows. I want my guests to be stored on an ExFAT formatted SSD that is then attached to the machienes via USB, so that I can use the VMs on boths hosts. I use ExFAT because NTFS is not supported by Mac OS.
What works:
I have created a virtual Alpine Linux guest (vbox and vdi) with the windows host on a different USB drive that is FAT fromatted.
First booting on the Mac host failed but after creating a new virtual machine (vbox) and attaching the Virtual harddisk located on the usb drive (VDI) it booted perfectly fine.
TLDR: create with windows on FAT, boot with mac
What does not work
I then created windows server2019, win10 and opensuse Linux guests (vbox and vdi) on the ExFAT formatted SSD using the Mac host.
From now on I will focus on the opensuse guest since all guests have the same Problem but I know it kind of worked the other way around using a linux guest in the past (See: What works).
First booting on the windows host failed again (something like disk not found), but this time cerating a new virtual machine (vbox) did not fix the issue entirely. Even though the machine started to boot it took forever to initiate ramdisk (multiple times of what was needed using the mac host), eventually i got a boot screen (logo of distro and so on) but after some time the loading indicator stopped spinning and while my keaboard was captured the shift lock indicator as well as the led beside it blinked simultaneously (I guess linux kernel panic). Btw same thing for windows server: it freezes during bootup.
Booting the vbox file created with windows on mac strangely works.
TLDR: create with mac on ExFAT, boot with windows
By specs the windows computer should be faster.
Sorry for my typos and my bad english.
Does anybody have any experience running virtual machines of of an ExFAT formatted external USB drive on an Windows host?
Any ideas would be appreciated!
Edit: fixed typo, added: "Booting the vbox file created with windows on mac strangely works."
Situation:
I have two hosts one is running MacOS and one Windows. I want my guests to be stored on an ExFAT formatted SSD that is then attached to the machienes via USB, so that I can use the VMs on boths hosts. I use ExFAT because NTFS is not supported by Mac OS.
What works:
I have created a virtual Alpine Linux guest (vbox and vdi) with the windows host on a different USB drive that is FAT fromatted.
First booting on the Mac host failed but after creating a new virtual machine (vbox) and attaching the Virtual harddisk located on the usb drive (VDI) it booted perfectly fine.
TLDR: create with windows on FAT, boot with mac
What does not work
I then created windows server2019, win10 and opensuse Linux guests (vbox and vdi) on the ExFAT formatted SSD using the Mac host.
From now on I will focus on the opensuse guest since all guests have the same Problem but I know it kind of worked the other way around using a linux guest in the past (See: What works).
First booting on the windows host failed again (something like disk not found), but this time cerating a new virtual machine (vbox) did not fix the issue entirely. Even though the machine started to boot it took forever to initiate ramdisk (multiple times of what was needed using the mac host), eventually i got a boot screen (logo of distro and so on) but after some time the loading indicator stopped spinning and while my keaboard was captured the shift lock indicator as well as the led beside it blinked simultaneously (I guess linux kernel panic). Btw same thing for windows server: it freezes during bootup.
Booting the vbox file created with windows on mac strangely works.
TLDR: create with mac on ExFAT, boot with windows
By specs the windows computer should be faster.
Sorry for my typos and my bad english.
Does anybody have any experience running virtual machines of of an ExFAT formatted external USB drive on an Windows host?
Any ideas would be appreciated!
Edit: fixed typo, added: "Booting the vbox file created with windows on mac strangely works."