Linked Disks and External Hard Drives

I am trying to create a linked disk to an external hard drive to convert the
data to a dynamic (or fixed) virtual hard drive. I have found that some
external drives show up in the "Physical Hard Disk" window of the "Virtual
Hard Disk Wizard" and some do not. Why is that? How can I get any external
hard drive to work? Or which exernal hard drives work with Virtual PC 2007
SP1 linked disks and which do not?

Thank you in advance for your time,
Jason M. Johnston

On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:19:01 -0700, Nametag
<> wrote:

>I am trying to create a linked disk to an external hard drive to convert the
>data to a dynamic (or fixed) virtual hard drive. I have found that some
>external drives show up in the "Physical Hard Disk" window of the "Virtual
>Hard Disk Wizard" and some do not. Why is that? How can I get any external
>hard drive to work? Or which exernal hard drives work with Virtual PC 2007
>SP1 linked disks and which do not?
>
>Thank you in advance for your time,
>Jason M. Johnston

To link a disk, it can't be in use by the host. REmove the drive
letter and you should be able to link to the disk.

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

Thanks Steve,
I read about that step and have made sure that my my drives are not lettered.
Is there a size limit to the drive that can be seen? (I know there is a
limit to the size of a virtual hard drive. That is not what I mean.
Is there a partician configuration that will not work?
I have one WD external drive that is seen by the vhd wizard and one WD
external drive that is not seen by the vhd wizard.

"Steve Jain [MVP]" wrote:

> On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:19:01 -0700, Nametag
> <> wrote:
>
> >I am trying to create a linked disk to an external hard drive to convert the
> >data to a dynamic (or fixed) virtual hard drive. I have found that some
> >external drives show up in the "Physical Hard Disk" window of the "Virtual
> >Hard Disk Wizard" and some do not. Why is that? How can I get any external
> >hard drive to work? Or which exernal hard drives work with Virtual PC 2007
> >SP1 linked disks and which do not?
> >
> >Thank you in advance for your time,
> >Jason M. Johnston
>
> To link a disk, it can't be in use by the host. REmove the drive
> letter and you should be able to link to the disk.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
> http://vpc.essjae.com/
>

On Sat, 5 Sep 2009 21:21:01 -0700, Nametag
<> wrote:

>Thanks Steve,
>I read about that step and have made sure that my my drives are not lettered.
>Is there a size limit to the drive that can be seen? (I know there is a
>limit to the size of a virtual hard drive. That is not what I mean.
>Is there a partician configuration that will not work?
>I have one WD external drive that is seen by the vhd wizard and one WD
>external drive that is not seen by the vhd wizard.
>
I overlooked you're using VPC2007SP1, as of SP1, linked disks are no
longer supported. You can't mount them to a VM, only create them, not
even sure why they offer it as an option.
From release notes:
"No support for using a virtual hard disk linked to a physical hard
disk
You can create a virtual hard disk that is linked to a physical hard
disk by using Virtual PC. However, it is no longer possible to use a
virtual hard disk that is linked to a physical hard disk in a virtual
machine.
"

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/

Hello,
Do you mind if I ask a question kind of on topic / kind of off; I am
trying to get more hard drive capacity then the 130GB limit - I have setup a
new virtual machine that I am using as a FTP / VPN - I have already added 2
130GB to Virtual hard disk 2 and hard disk 3 - but they are simply not
enough, I linked a shared drive but the problem is that I need to be able to
access the capacity through a VPN and or a FTP - so shared drives don't work
because I can't map them, like I can (of course) with the hard drive 1 and
hard drive 2... basically I just want 1TB for accessiblity through a VPN
through my virtual machine... any ideas on how I can achieve this? - The most
I am able to get now is around 300 cumlitive GB's accesible through the VPN
(through multiples of shared drives). far short of my 1TB goal.

Thank you in advance! I appreciate any help.

"Steve Jain [MVP]" wrote:

> On Sat, 5 Sep 2009 21:21:01 -0700, Nametag
> <> wrote:
>
> >Thanks Steve,
> >I read about that step and have made sure that my my drives are not lettered.
> >Is there a size limit to the drive that can be seen? (I know there is a
> >limit to the size of a virtual hard drive. That is not what I mean.
> >Is there a partician configuration that will not work?
> >I have one WD external drive that is seen by the vhd wizard and one WD
> >external drive that is not seen by the vhd wizard.
> >
> I overlooked you're using VPC2007SP1, as of SP1, linked disks are no
> longer supported. You can't mount them to a VM, only create them, not
> even sure why they offer it as an option.
> From release notes:
> "No support for using a virtual hard disk linked to a physical hard
> disk
> You can create a virtual hard disk that is linked to a physical hard
> disk by using Virtual PC. However, it is no longer possible to use a
> virtual hard disk that is linked to a physical hard disk in a virtual
> machine.
> "
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
> http://vpc.essjae.com/
>

"IW" <> wrote in message
news:2E3BB533-D76B-4254-B3D3-...

> ...
> new virtual machine that I am using as a FTP / VPN [server]
> ...
> basically I just want 1TB for accessiblity through a VPN through my
> virtual machine
> ...

Have you looked at Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1? According to
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...09(WS.10).aspx , it
supports virtual SCSI drives up to 2TB in size.

(2nd try; I previously clicked the wrong 'Reply to' button, sorry)

"SaGS" wrote:

> "IW" <> wrote in message
> news:2E3BB533-D76B-4254-B3D3-...
>
> > ...
> > new virtual machine that I am using as a FTP / VPN [server]
> > ...
> > basically I just want 1TB for accessiblity through a VPN through my
> > virtual machine
> > ...
>
> Have you looked at Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1? According to
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...09(WS.10).aspx , it
> supports virtual SCSI drives up to 2TB in size.
>
> (2nd try; I previously clicked the wrong 'Reply to' button, sorry)
>
>

Remember, you have to use a SCSI adapter, not IDE to get the higher
capacity. You can have up to 4 SCSI adapters with 7 disks on each. And as
the previous reply said you have a 2TB limit for each of those VHD's.

In message <6583DC73-F6E9-4DD6-AE88-> jeffsc77
<> was claimed to have wrote:

>Remember, you have to use a SCSI adapter, not IDE to get the higher
>capacity. You can have up to 4 SCSI adapters with 7 disks on each. And as
>the previous reply said you have a 2TB limit for each of those VHD's.

56TB ought to be enough for anybody?

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:58:44 -0700, Dave Warren
<dave-> wrote:

>In message <6583DC73-F6E9-4DD6-AE88-> jeffsc77
><> was claimed to have wrote:
>
>>Remember, you have to use a SCSI adapter, not IDE to get the higher
>>capacity. You can have up to 4 SCSI adapters with 7 disks on each. And as
>>the previous reply said you have a 2TB limit for each of those VHD's.
>
>56TB ought to be enough for anybody?
>
>

You're going to be famous now! "Remember when Dave said 56TB was
enough for anybody!?!?!? HAHAHAHA!"

--
Cheers,
Steve Jain, Virtual Machine MVP
http://vpc.essjae.com/
http://smudj.wordpress.com/

In message <> "Steve Jain
[MVP]" <noreply.-@-.essjae.com> was claimed to have wrote:

>On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:58:44 -0700, Dave Warren
><dave-> wrote:
>
>>In message <6583DC73-F6E9-4DD6-AE88-> jeffsc77
>><> was claimed to have wrote:
>>
>>>Remember, you have to use a SCSI adapter, not IDE to get the higher
>>>capacity. You can have up to 4 SCSI adapters with 7 disks on each. And as
>>>the previous reply said you have a 2TB limit for each of those VHD's.
>>
>>56TB ought to be enough for anybody?
>>
>>
>
>You're going to be famous now! "Remember when Dave said 56TB was
>enough for anybody!?!?!? HAHAHAHA!"

Sweet!

It also occurs to me that iSCSI is a possible workaround if anyone does
need to go over 56TB today, but is still using Virtual Server.