Raw disk/partition support?

ojasparekh · Post by **ojasparekh** » 10. Sep 2007, 00:39

First off thanks for the great product! I've read the documentation but am not sure whether raw disks are supported on an OS X host. Here's the error I encounter:

Code: Select all

[dbook: /Users/ojas]$ diskutil list                                                       /dev/disk0
   #:                   type name               size      identifier
   0:  GUID_partition_scheme                    *55.9 GB  disk0
   1:                    EFI                    200.0 MB  disk0s1
   2:              Apple_HFS Macintosh HD       47.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:   Microsoft Basic Data Untitled           8.6 GB    disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                   type name               size      identifier
   0: Apple_partition_scheme                    *55.6 GB  disk1
   1:    Apple_partition_map                    31.5 KB   disk1s1
   2:              Apple_HFS ojas               55.6 GB   disk1s2
[dbook: /Users/ojas]$ sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /tmp/raw.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/rdisk0
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 1.4.1-beta2
(C) 2005-2007 innotek GmbH
All rights reserved.

Error while creating the raw disk VMDK: VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER
[dbook: /Users/ojas]$ sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /tmp/raw.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/disk0  
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 1.4.1-beta2
(C) 2005-2007 innotek GmbH
All rights reserved.

Error while creating the raw disk VMDK: VERR_INVALID_PARAMETER
[dbook: /Users/ojas]$

Since I'm not getting an outright "not supported" error, I figured there might be support. I've also tried with an external firewire disk that wasn't currently mounted which resulted in the same error code.

-Ojas

Post by **axet** » 7. Nov 2007, 18:02

I looking for solution too, any suggestions?

ribes · Post by **ribes** » 4. Dec 2007, 19:30

Bump. Tearing my hair out on this one too. I bought a larger HD for my mac mini to do this!

Help please.

Deever · Post by **Deever** » 30. Mar 2008, 03:16

As it seems to me, the problem still exists...
Please help!

Greetings,
/dev

danilop · Post by **danilop** » 31. Mar 2008, 15:23

I found this issue, too.
Is the raw disk/partition feature in the Mac beta, or not?
Thanks!

billmc · Post by **billmc** » 3. Apr 2008, 03:56

Folks, I've never used a MAC so I'm not familiar with the OS, but seeing it is -nix based, this might apply. I'm a Linux user. In Linux, in order for the user to be able to access the disk, that user must belong to the group disk.

The command to do this in Linux is (as root ) usermod -a -G disk username

Hope this helps.

Aliby · Post by **Aliby** » 3. Apr 2008, 06:48

Watch this thread
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=333

Post by **m@riposa** » 3. Apr 2008, 20:58

If you read the introduction text of the mpkg-file for OS X, you will find that raw disk access is among the features which are currently not yet available in the Mac Beta.

djef · Post by **djef** » 24. Feb 2009, 08:23

Did this ever get fixed for Mac OS 10.5.x yet? I'm (trying to be) using VirtualBox 2.1.2. VBoxManager seems not to be able to see any of the partitions of my drives, just the GUID_partition_scheme.