Trouble using / adding a VMWare vmdk image

[pixel8r]

Hello,
I'm having a bit of trouble using the FreeNAS ESX virtual machine 0.69RC2 vmdk file with a headless VirtualBox installation (Ubuntu Server 8.04 LTS Host).

History:
I was able to use the same vmdk file to set up FreeNAS on a windows XP Host using the GUI Disk Manager and adding the VMWare image from there and it works great.

Now I want to do the same using a headless VBox server.
Using VBox 3.0.8 I created my VM and set all the details.

Problem:
When I try adding the VMWare image as a disk using VBoxManage I get an error.

VBoxManage modifyvm freenas --hda "/secondary/.Virtual/vdisks/FreeNAS69RC2-flat.vmdk"

VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.0.8
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ERROR: Could not get the storage format of the hard disk '/secondary/.Virtual/vdisks/FreeNAS69RC2-flat.vmdk' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED)
Details: code VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80bb0005), component HardDisk, interface IHardDisk, callee nsISupports
Context: "OpenHardDisk(Bstr(hdds[0]), AccessMode_ReadWrite, false, Bstr(""), false, Bstr(""), hardDisk.asOutParam())" at line 1133 of file VBoxManageModifyVM.cpp

I thought maybe I need to register the image first and get a similar error:

VBoxManage registerimage disk /secondary/.Virtual/vdisks/FreeNAS69RC2-flat.vmdk

ERROR: Could not get the storage format of the hard disk '/secondary/.Virtual/vdisks/FreeNAS69RC2-flat.vmdk' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED)
Details: code VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80bb0005), component HardDisk, interface IHardDisk, callee nsISupports
Context: "OpenHardDisk(Bstr(Filename), AccessMode_ReadWrite, fSetImageId, ImageIdStr, fSetParentId, ParentIdStr, hardDisk.asOutParam())" at line 1426 of file VBoxManageDisk.cpp

To be sure it was not a problem with the VM, I created a seperate disk image (vdi) and was able to successfully add that to the VM using:

modifyvm freenas --hda "/secondary/.Virtual/vdisks/TestDisk.vdi"

I then removed the disk using

modifyvm freenas --hda none

I have searched the Web and forums and read through the manual looking for clues. Am I missing a step somewhere?

I would really appreciate any insight to what I might be doing wrong here, or a point in the right direction.

[pixel8r]

UPDATE:
This is looking like a 32bit vs 64bit issue.
The XP system is 32bit, the headless server is 64bit.

I downloaded the 64bit ISO from FreeNAS and that is booting fine.

It's probable that the VMWare image from the FreeNAS download page does not support 64bit.

Seems I was looking in the wrong haystack ..