How to add my entire hard drive

[john6969]

I installed vmware 12 workstation how do I add my entire hard drive.

 

I currenlty have a 3 TB drive with data that I don't want to erase. How can I add this do my VM

[Olegin]

As rdm disk.

[john6969]

I am using VMWARE Workstation 12. I don't think Rdm is available

[billat29]

Create a new virtual machine using the wizard. You will have to create it with a virtual disk at this point. Save your new VM then go back and edit the virtual machine.

Add a new HDD (choose a sensible type that matches your real disk) and then you will get the option to use a physical disk

[john6969]

I am lost on how to add an entire new hard drive. You metion to create a new virtual machine??

 

I try to add a new hard drive then Use a physical disk then select the physicaldirve# click on use entire disk file but when I boot it fails with this error message

Cannot open disk C:\Users\Server\Documents\Virtual Machines\XPEnology\DSM-2.vmdk

[billat29]

Ok. So what have you been able to do? Before attempting to add a physical disk, you should have imported the virtual machine files from June loader. Did you do that already?

EDIT:

Oh yes and my assumption is that your 3TB disk has come out of a DSM bare metal installation and is not a random disk with data on it.

EDIT AGAIN!

Ah and then I remembered. Check the VMWare documentation. I recall that Workstation only allows physical disks up to 2TB.

[john6969]

I am trying to add a 1.5 TB drive. I really just want to try this software out and if it does everything I want I think I am going to build a bare metal one with 500.00 budget.

 

So at that price I can buy and average synology or build a really good one

[IG-88]

if its just about trying it out, why not format the disk under windows as usual and with vmware just plainly create a virtual drive as file on that new drive letter, if its not about performace or keeping the date it does'nt matter

if you crate thin disks you also might create a number of virtual disks in the vm and try out how to migrate from a basic disk to a raid1 or how to create a raid (1 or 5)