Virtualisation (RSS)

Virtulisation topics, VMWare, VirtualPC etc.

Blog moved to WordPress and new domain...

I've moved my blog to my own domain and onto a WordPress engine, CS + SPAM was driving me nuts!

Catchup posts: Oh yes, I've been in Japan for a couple of months, first 2 weeks of photos are uploaded on Flickr, I still havent had a chance to upload the thousands after.

Whats more, I've actually written some information about me so you can finally find out my sad sad way of life. See About Thushan Fernando.
posted Sunday, June 29, 2008 2:57 PM by Thushan Fernando

VMWARE-FIX: Explorer.exe crashes when using Shared Folders in Windows XP

If you notice that your explorer process (inside the VM) crashes when you map a shared folder in VMWare your not alone. Just goto Tools -> Folder Options -> and check 'Classic Folders' option (so use Classic folders instead).

Shouldnt crash anymore. Simple!
posted Friday, October 26, 2007 1:18 PM by Thushan Fernando with 12 Comments

VMWARE FIX: Reason: Failed to lock the file.

Came across an issue upgrading/running my newly installed VMWare 6 install. Error was along the lines of: 
"Cannot open the disk '$FILENAME' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on. Reason: Failed to lock the file."
(obviously where $FILENAME is the VMWare disk - *.vmdk - file!) My Logfile output: 
May 10 20:43:31.593: vmx| ----------------------------------------
May 10 20:43:31.593: vmx| Opened paging file G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\564d377a-cb50-1a6d-04c3-660d09fdb44e.vmem
May 10 20:43:31.609: vmx| Mapped mainmem as pageable
May 10 20:43:31.609: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat vm.uptime
May 10 20:43:31.609: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat vm.suspendTime
May 10 20:43:31.609: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat vm.powerOnTimeStamp
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| VMXVmdb_LoadRawConfig: Loading raw config
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISK: OPEN scsi0:0 'G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk' persistent R[(null)]
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| FILE: CreateEntryDirectory: 'G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk.lck' exists; an old style lock file?
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| FILE: FileIO_Lock Failed to get a lock for file 'G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk': Lock timed out.
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISKLIB-DSCPTR: Couldn't lock descriptor file G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk: 4.
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISKLIB-DSCPTR: Failed to open extents for descriptor file in normal mode
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISKLIB-LINK  : "G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk" : failed to open (Failed to lock the file).  
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISKLIB-CHAIN : "G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk" : failed to open (Failed to lock the file).
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISKLIB-LIB   : Failed to open 'G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk' with flags 0xa (Failed to lock the file).
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| DISK: Cannot open disk "G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk": Failed to lock the file (16392).
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| Msg_Post: Error
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| [msg.disk.noBackEnd] Cannot open the disk 'G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.
May 10 20:43:31.625: vmx| [msg.disk.configureDiskError] Reason: Failed to lock the file.----------------------------------------
May 10 20:43:37.250: vmx| Module DiskEarly power on failed.
May 10 20:43:37.250: vmx| VMX_PowerOn: ModuleTable_PowerOn = 0
May 10 20:43:37.250: vmx| AIOWIN32: asyncOps=0 syncOps=0 bufSize=0Kb delayed=0 fixed=0 sgOp=0 sgOn=1
May 10 20:43:37.265: vmx| WORKER: asyncOps=0 maxActiveOps=0 maxPending=0 maxCompleted=0
May 10 20:43:37.343: vmx| vmdbPipe_Streams: Couldn't read
May 10 20:43:37.343: vmx| VMX idle exit
May 10 20:43:37.343: vmx| Flushing VMX VMDB connections
May 10 20:43:37.343: vmx| IPC_exit: disconnecting all threads
May 10 20:43:37.343: vmx| VMX exit (0).

It may be possibly because i shutdown VMWare improperly that a lock file was left in the folder(lck), removing the LCK file in the folder fixed the issue for the above Windows 2003 image. However, another VMWare image still didnt work even after erasing the lock files, I had to remove the last created snapshot and "upgrade" the VMWare image to the new v6.x format (it was previously in VMWare 5 format) for it to properly boot. This is with VMWare Workstation v6.0 45731.
posted Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:46 AM by Thushan Fernando with 4 Comments

COOL TOOL: VMWare v6.0 has been released!

Something i've been eagerly awaiting, VMWare 6 has finally made it out of beta and into the open. I'm too tired to go through details (need sleep!), so i'll leave it to this internet.com VMWare article but try an evaluation version and see the VMWare Product Page for more information. The VS2005/Eclipse integration, VNC support and USB2.0 support is awesome if the 'Back in Time' feature doesnt sell you over.

Sleep time:-)
posted Wednesday, May 09, 2007 2:28 PM by Thushan Fernando with 1 Comments

HOW-TO: Increase the size of an existing VMWare Hard Disk (VMDK)

VMWare is a god-send tool and as such I use it far too much. I usually spend a bit of time before creating a new disk to make sure the disk is fully created before running it (a fixed size instead of dynamic - does wonders for performance!) But what happens if you find your running out of space after you slug away at it?

Here's how to increase the size of a disk that has been created already.
  1. First make sure that the VMWare Image doesnt have any snapshots attached to it. To do this goto VM -> SnapShot -> Snapshot Manager (or hit CTRL+M) and remove (or backup) any snapshots that are there.
  2. Head down to the installation folder in VMWare installation folder and open the folder in Command prompt (easier!)
  3. The command for increasing the size is:
    vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x ** "%PATH_TO_VMDK%"
    Where ** = Size of the hard disk to grow to (be careful not to decrease in size) so for 10Gb enter '10Gb' without the quotes, this is the total size of the HD not how much to increase by! Then fill the '%PATH_TO_VMDK%' with the path to the main hard disk file (not a chained hard disk). The output is something like this:
    C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation>vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x 10Gb "G:\Virtual Machines\Windows 2003 Server\Enterprise - Default\Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.vmdk"
Using log file C:\DOCUME~1\THUSHA~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\vmware-Thushan Fernando\vdiskManager.log
  Grow: 100% done.
The old geometry C/H/S of the disk is: 783/255/63
The new geometry C/H/S of the disk is: 1305/255/63
Disk expansion completed successfully.

WARNING: If the virtual disk is partitioned, you must use a third-party
         utility in the virtual machine to expand the size of the
         partitions. For more information, see:
         http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1647

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Workstation>
  4. Once that's completed you can either create a new partition with that (via Computer Management -> Disk Management in Windows) or merge it with a Partition Merging tool like GParted Live CD! If you've installed Windows, it will/may do a chkdsk which is normal.
There nice and easy:-)
posted Monday, April 16, 2007 6:06 AM by Thushan Fernando with 1 Comments