USING MULTIPLE VDI FILES

[jcdole]

Hello.
On my windows XP guest, I would like to have
First VDI File : WINXP.vdi
Disk C: windows system files - 10 Gb
Second VDI File : WINDATA.vdi
Disk D : All user temporary directory, User Internet directory, Windows user data directory - 5 Gb
Third VDI File : WINPROGRAM.vdi
Disk E : All windows applications programs - 10 Gb

1°) Install normally windows xp and specify WINXP.vdi following normal installation method (very easy).
2°) After install is fully finished
2-1 Stop the guest windows XP
2-2 Add second vdi file (Don't know how)
2-3 Start the guest windows Xp
2-4 Format the second VDI files as a second disk or unformated partition as disk D (Don't know how to set the second vdi files as disk D)
2-5 Using windows administration tools set (very easy) All user temporary directory, User Internet directory, Windows user data directory to this disk D
3°) Install my windows software
3-1 Stop the guest windows XP
3-2 Add third vdi file (Don't know how)
3-3 Start the guest windows Xp
3-4 Format the third VDI bfiles as a third disk or unformated partition as disk E (Don't know how to set the third vdi files as disk E)
3-5 Add windows software (very easy)

Is that procedure possible ?

[socratis]

Go to VM settings -> Storage -> (select the IDE controller) -> Add Hard Disk. (see image below)

VBox will ask you if you want to choose an existing one or create a new one. You can have up to 4 devices per IDE controller, but I guess you already have 1 HD and 1 CD when you created the VM. Choose the sizes you want and you're done.

All of them will be presented to the guest as unpartitioned HDs. The first one will be by default the system gets installed. Then you format the rest from within your OS. The rest of the setup is up to you, but I suspect that most programs will want to install to the C:\Program Files directory.

3HDs.png (54.62 KiB) Viewed 8265 times

[mpack]

Bear in mind that VirtualBox's limitations are not arbitrary. It has to emulate a specific motherboard chipset otherwise a real OS might not be compatible with it. You will be limited to however many disks your chosen VM recipe allows. Typically the chipset will allow one or two IDE controllers (if you can't add another IDE controller then you've already reached the limit), and each IDE controller will allow 4 drives (primary/secondary channel, master and slave drive on each). An XP guest defaults to a PIIX3 chipset, which only allows one IDE controller.

If you have a SATA controller then I think the limit is 31 drives. I've never tried to add more than one SATA controller.

The good news is that, while in the physical world you are well advised not to put a slow device on the same IDE channel as a fast one - because the channel would then run at the speed of the slowest device - in the virtual world that is not a concern.

[socratis]

An XP guest defaults to a PIIX3 chipset, which only allows one IDE controller.

Actually no guest recipe comes with a PIIX3 chipset. Most of them come with PIIX4. Citation.

[mpack]

An XP guest defaults to a PIIX3 chipset, which only allows one IDE controller.

Actually no guest recipe comes with a PIIX3 chipset. Most of them come with PIIX4. Citation.

Actually, the chipset is PIIX3, the IDE controller chip is a PIIX4. I double checked this in my own XP VMs before I posted. Look in <settings>|System.

[socratis]

Oh, you meant the system chipset. Then all of them come with that, unless you're setting up an OSX client.

[mpack]

As an aside: AFAIK chipset == the set of chips which together provides all of the significant features of a motherboard. The IDE controller chip doesn't constitute a set. "System chipset" is redundant.

I'm not sure what "all of them" means. If you mean that PIIX3 is the default in all VBox Windows templates then you may be right, I have not checked - VBox templates tend to be conservative. However ICH9 is supported in recent Windows versions. Not sure offhand about Vista, but certainly it's an option for Win7 and later.

I haven't heard that OS X is particularly associated with ICH9. Are you thinking of EFI?

[socratis]

Maybe it has to do something with EFI, but in the tooltip for the system chipset it says:
Selects the chipset to be emulated in this virtual machine. Note that the ICH9 chipset emulation is experimental and not recommended except for guest systems (such as Mac OS X) which require it.

[mpack]

Yes, well, if you wanted two IDE controllers in one VM then that would be a good example of a VM which requires ICH9.

[jcdole]

Go to VM settings -> Storage -> (select the IDE controller) -> Add Hard Disk. (see image below)

VBox will ask you if you want to choose an existing one or create a new one. You can have up to 4 devices per IDE controller, but I guess you already have 1 HD and 1 CD when you created the VM. Choose the sizes you want and you're done.

All of them will be presented to the guest as unpartitioned HDs. The first one will be by default the system gets installed. Then you format the rest from within your OS. The rest of the setup is up to you, but I suspect that most programs will want to install to the C:\Program Files directory.

3HDs.png

Thank you very much for helping.
I succeed.
Thread is closed