[Windows 7] Problem with physical partition access

[Se7en]

Hi,

I've got Windows 7 Pro x64 and Virtualbox 3.0.10, my guest OS is Debian 5.0 (Lenny) and it use two physical partitions.

The first physical partition (ext3) is a entire physical hard disk and the second physical partition (ext3) is a individual physical harddisk partition and is the 2nd primary partition from an other HDD. The 1st primary partition is a NTFS primary partition used by the host OS.

My problem is the guest OS can't mount the second physical partition but the first physical partition is mounted.

said :
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev hdd2.

said :
Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...

But the filesystem isn't damaged because Linux live CD (as host OS) can mount it without problem.

NOTE: Because of Windows 7 restrictions, I always run Virtualbox as Administrator in order to allow it to acceed to my physical partitions.

I retry to mount it with Windows XP Pro x64 (host OS) and Virtualbox 3.0.10 but the problem still occur.

[Se7en]

Finally, I use the "Access to entire physical hard disk" method, it seems the "Access to individual physical hard disk partitions" method doesn't work anymore.

[Sasquatch]

You realize the problems that might come if you use the full hard drive, right?

[Se7en]

No !

The problem is resolved when Virtualbox got an entire physical hard disk access.

In my case, host OS use the 1st partition and guest OS use the 2nd partition.

[Perryg]

If you try accessing the part that has the main OS on it while it is mounted you can loose your entire OS, host and guest.
Or say some indexing software kicks it you can actually wipe the data.

Maybe you should read section 9.10. Using a raw host hard disk from a guest of the VBox Users Guide to be sure you know what can happen.

[Se7en]

In my case, the host OS and guest OS never read/write the same partition.
These partitions have only data files, the host OS is on another HDD, and guest OS is virtual HDD file

Code: Select all

                   HDD 0 (System)
+----------------------------------------+
|              NTFS (host OS)            |
+----------------------------------------+

                   HDD 1 (Data)
+----------------------------------------+
|              ext3 (guest)              |
+----------------------------------------+

                   HDD 2 (Data)
+--------------------+-------------------+
|    NTFS (host)     |    ext3 (guest)   |
+--------------------+-------------------+
      Partition 1         Partition 2

[Sasquatch]

Just be sure to make regular backups in case things do go wrong.

[Se7en]

The filesystem isn't damage.

Using the command line
VBoxManage.exe internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename C:\vbox\Drives\HDD02.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive2 -partitions 2

Two files are created : HDD02.vmdk and HDD02-pt.vmdk
I set it in the guest OS settings.
Guest OS wasn't able to acceed to the partition 2, but it displays the partition table.
It wasn't able to read the partition 1 (NTFS).

-----------------

Using the command line
VBoxManage.exe internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename C:\vbox\Drives\HDD02.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive2

One file is created : HDD02.vmdk
I set it in the guest OS settings.
Guest OS is able to acceed to the partition 2 and it displays the partition table.

[thebeana]

I'm having a similar problem trying to boot my Ubuntu 9.10 partition inside a VM using raw access, with the host running Window 7 64bit.

I have first partition windows ntfs, then 2 others ex4 and swap (and a few more, but they are irrelevant).


The guest machine can't seem to read the partition table created by VBoxManage, and just see's the full disk blank.

However access without the --partitions options works fine (ie raw access for the entire disk)

Not going to use that though, to much risk that i'll accidentaly access my windows partition and screw everything up!

Anyone got any solution that isnt giving raw access to the entire disk? Or is this just something we will have to wait to be fixed?

[Se7en]

What is your Virtualbox version ?

If it's 3.0.10, maybe you should try the previous versions : 3.0.8 or 3.0.6*
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... 40-Win.exe
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualb ... 28-Win.exe

If not, you should be waiting for the November update.


(*) I confirm Virtualbox 3.0.10 got this problem with these host operating systems :
Windows XP Pro x64, Windows 7 Pro x64
and Virtualbox 3.0.6 worked well with Windows XP Pro x64.

I don't know about Virtualbox 3.0.8, I never used it.

[MarkCranness]

There is a known raw disk access regression in 3.0.10: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/5355

[Se7en]

OK, thank you.