03-06-2011, 12:28 PM

I'm planning on getting rid of the disc burner in my computer since it is not working anymore, and installing a 2nd hard drive in there. Now I was going to be splitting this 2 drive into 3 partitions, 2 small and 1 larger. One will be a utility partition, 1 will be Linux, and the other Windows 7. Now my larger hard drive is going to be OSX only. On the OSX disc, i will have VMware fusion installed so I can access the other partitions at once if I need to. Since I would need to install Windows 7 onto the new partition on the new drive and since I don't have an internal drive, and my model of Mac doesn't support USB connected drives to install operating systems; can VMware fusion pick up the Linux and Windows partitions so I can install their operating systems on without having the physical discs? I'll be making ISOs of the discs I have so I can do this, but would Fusion by able to recognize these partitions?

03-06-2011, 12:56 PM

VMWare has an active user forum - have you asked there as well?

03-06-2011, 01:03 PM

It should be able to detect the presence of any volume the host OS can see.

With that said, I would question the wisdom of installing Linux natively instead of in a VM. Few game on Linux and that's really the only place a VM falls flat.

03-06-2011, 01:36 PM

I will only be using Fusion to install the OSes but i'll be running them natively on their designated partitions. But I'll be sure to check out their forum too.

03-06-2011, 01:50 PM

Well I just tried creating an account for the forums there, and it keeps giving me an error and won't allow me to register, so that might work.

03-06-2011, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by mknabster

I will only be using Fusion to install the OSes but i'll be running them natively on their designated partitions. But I'll be sure to check out their forum too.

As far as I know, Fusion doesn't work like that. You can run an OS installed natively on a Boot Camp partition, but you can't do it the other way around. When you install an OS via Fusion, it creates a virtual disk (which is actually a single file that contains your OS disk). That virtual disk is only accessible from Fusion.

It can co-opt an existing Boot Camp partition, but I don't believe it can create the partition and/or install an OS to an existing partition and have it be bootable (again, unless there's some capability I'm not aware of).

But again, unless you're gaming, it's usually preferential to run Linux (and I'd argue Windows too) via virtualization.

03-06-2011, 02:02 PM

I have been able to use Fusion to install Windows on my current Bootcamp partition and it normally recognizes it right away. I'm just trying to figure out if it could recognize more than 1 bootcamp partition. I don't use bootcamp anyways to make the partitions, I use iPartition to do it.

03-07-2011, 10:55 AM

Since the idea of Fusion is that you can run Windows without the need for Bootcamp I'm always curious why someone would want to run Fusion in a Bootcamp partition.

03-07-2011, 03:16 PM

I don't know if you guys fully understand what i'm trying to do here. I'm basically asking if Fusion can install the operating systems onto their designated partitions virtually since I won't have an internal drive anymore. I won't be using Fusion to run them after the installation, That's what Bootcamp is for.

03-07-2011, 03:33 PM

Originally Posted by mknabster

I don't know if you guys fully understand what i'm trying to do here. I'm basically asking if Fusion can install the operating systems onto their designated partitions virtually since I won't have an internal drive anymore. I won't be using Fusion to run them after the installation, That's what Bootcamp is for.

I understand what you're after, I just don't understand why you would want to do it that way. It's so much easier and more flexible to do a standard VM rather than splitting your HDD into what will be 6 different partitions (since Linux requires 3 all by itself).

Not only that, but even if you are able to somehow make Fusion do this, each OS would want to use its own boot loader, which is likely going to overwrite that of the other OSes.

All I'm saying is that you're going about this the wrong way. Now, if you intend to play games, then yes, you'll want to at least run Windows natively. But in almost any other case, it's going to be much less hassle to just run standard VMs (which work with a virtual hard disk, which is a single file on your hard drive).

But by all means, give it a shot... I just can't answer the question of whether Fusion can install an OS on a dedicated partition and still allow for that partition to boot natively. I don't think it can, but I can't answer it definitively.

03-07-2011, 03:49 PM

Why would Linux require 3 different partitions to itself? I have a boot loader called reFit which can basically boot anything, so i'm not worried about it booting. I do mainly use Windows for gaming, but also for some animation programs I have that aren't supported by OSX.

03-07-2011, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by mknabster

Why would Linux require 3 different partitions to itself? I have a boot loader called reFit which can basically boot anything, so i'm not worried about it booting. I do mainly use Windows for gaming, but also for some animation programs I have that aren't supported by OSX.

It's just the nature of the beast. Most Linux distros create 3 different partitions - one for the OS, one for the swap file, one Primary and one Logical. Not exactly sure why it needs three, but it does.

Here's what I would try if I were in your shoes -

1. Use Boot Camp Assistant to split the disk.
2. Once BCA is finished, do not reboot when prompted.
3. Fire up Fusion and attempt to install Windows to the Boot Camp partition (I'm not sure if this will work, but try it and see).
4. Assuming it does work, install Linux to a VM (do not use a partition, but use the default hard disk file).

In this way you shouldn't need a boot loader as BCA should prep the OS X boot loader to be able to boot either Windows or OS X. Then just run Linux via Fusion, as there's no need to run it natively.

03-07-2011, 04:17 PM

Does Bootcamp work on secondary hard drives in a computer? I was told otherwise

03-07-2011, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by mknabster

Does Bootcamp work on secondary hard drives in a computer? I was told otherwise

No, I don't believe so. Although Windows can definitely install natively on a second internal drive. In that case, I think you would have to use rEFIt. Throughout all the discussion, I think I missed that particular goal of yours.

So, with that said, disregard the instruction to use BCA. I would instead format the secondary drive as a straight FAT32 drive. If you use NTFS, you're going to run into an issue (assuming Fusion can install directly to that drive) as OS X will need to see it as R/W unless you have a driver that can R/W NTFS installed on OS X.

03-07-2011, 04:28 PM

Yea I have Paragon NTFS installed so it can see NTFS volumes, so that won't be a problem. After thinking about it, I might hold off on this decision for the 2nd hard drive, I just have a bad feeling that it won't work.