I post here a really easy to follow guide that will make you eventually boot from your windows partition under vmware if:
you are using a dual boot XP/OS X normally booting with the darwin bootloader
you have them on the same HD
VMWare is not seeing the windows partition as a "BootCamp" partiton.

1) Install VMWare.

2) Open terminal and type:

sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

where 0 is the number of your hd where you have the two systems.
type:

print

here you will have a list of your partitions. Please proceed ONLY if you see the HFS+ partition flagged with the * symbol.
type:

flag X

where X is the number of the windows partition you want to use with vmware.

type:

write

type "y" and enter.

Do not exit fdisk as you will need it just in a few minutes.

3) launch vmware and you'll be pleased to see that you now have a bootcamp boot option. Follow the program instructions.

4) When you have finished to install everything and play a bit with the new toy exit VMWare shutting the machine down.

5) Go to the open terminal window and type:

flag X
where X is the number of the partition the was flagged before you changed it (the HFS+ boot partition).

type:

write
y
exit

6) Open vmware and verify that the BootCamp boot option is still there (as it was for me).

7) Try to reboot mac os (it should be all ok!

DONE

thankyou so much for this.
Havn't tried yet but i'll try it once a final version of fusion comes out. (it's still too buggy for me atm)

Thanks a million for this post; I knew there had to be a simple way to get this done! However, I'm not quite out of the woods yet. I installed Windows/OS X/Linux, in that order. Linux installed grub, which apparently did something weird to the Darwin bootloader. Grub right now is set to boot:

Linux: hda0,2
Windows: hda0,0
OS X: hda0,1

When you select OS X from Grub's menu, it then boots into the Darwin bootloader, which in turn gives me the option of booting OS X or Windows.

The result of all of this is that when I follow the instructions you posted, I *do* get the option in Fusion to boot from Boot Camp Partition (yay!) but when I actually try to do so I get this:

----
GRUB Loading stage1.5

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 17
----

I take it that VMware is trying to boot grub, which sees the filesystem as some kind of weird VMware virtual thing and gets confused, and pukes with an error 17. My question, therefore: do you know how to fix this? I will happily lose the ability to boot into linux and reinstall the darwin bootloader on MBR if only I could figure out how...

Help is much appreciated.

thank you. it worked exactly as described.

anyone know how to get the Win XP in fusion to see a fat32 partition?
booting in windows sees the partition fine.

Hi, I try that to use my previously xp installation on fusion but it doesn't work

When I do "write" after flag the windows partition it says me :
fdisk:*1> write
Device could not be accessed exclusively.
A reboot will be needed for changes to take effect. OK? [n]

I'm in exactly the same boat, please let me know if you find a solution for this one.

P.

trid this method using VMware 1.1 but it theres an error...

i, too get an error.

i can select the bootcamp option without switching my active partition, but when i try to boot, i get this error:

b0 error

you sir are my hero!

Using Leopard 10.5.1. disk1s1 = linux, disk1s2 = osx, disk1s3 = XP. disk1s5 is my data partition. Lilo is in the MBR as my bootloader.

With VMWare Fusion 1.1 I was unable to get anything going. Choosing a boot camp partition and run or settings cause Fusion to try to create a VM profile but it never finished and after killing Fusion the VM wasn't runnable. Fusion 1.0 worked better, I was able to create a VM profile.

I set the Windows partition active, but on starting Fusion it ran Lilo from the hard drive's MBR (and failed). I finally followed someone else's advice and downloaded a SuperGrub ISO and set the VMs CD drive to "Use Disk Image". When I started the VM I pressed f2 to access the "BIOS" and set it to boot from CD. Once SuperGrub started I was able to choose to boot the windows partition.

Works fine, though I don't have access to the data partition (disk1s5, a fat32 partition) from within the VM.

It's all a bit of a hassle. If it were really important for me to have a windows VM for certain apps I'd probably just install Windows in a regular VM and forget about getting the "boot camp" partition running in VMWare. It's doable at least..

Also, now that I have a VM set up, I can run it with Fusion 1.1. I just can't get it set up in the first place with 1.1. 1.0 seems to be necessary to start, at least for me.

so is there a way to get vmware fusion 1.1 to boot the windows bootcamp partition yet? I always get the b0 error

you can manually specify the dive in the vmx files with a tool.

here is an old post: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=344195

does anyone have the invalid serial number error?

b0 error

If you are getting a b0 error, it usually means that Fusion found your 'boot camp' before you were able to set the Windows partition as active.

To get around this:

1. Make sure Fusion is not running.
2. Using Finder, go to /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion and trash all of the folders (you should see Boot Camp and Helper)
3. continue with step 2 sroddy's tutorial (post 1 in this thread)

I installed VMware Fusion 1.1 on Leopard and it ran my windows xp on another hard disk like a charm. It detected it as a Bootcamp partition automatically. No settings required at all.

just one thing: I could only found the C drive in the xp disk which I formatted to 3 partitions. Is it possible to get the other 2 appear as well?

i have not found a way to have the drive be seen like real drives.

but, vmware allows you to add Shared Folders. you can add fat32 drives or even mac drives and folders. then while in windows you can give the shares a drive letter so the drives always show up.

only problem is when you boot into windows directly the system takes a long time to startup.
i think it is trying to find the shares and not finding them because vmware is not running.

it works, just not the best.

Is it possible to get this working with vista? I am using VMWare Fusion 1.1 with Tiger 10.4.11

Thanks

Sure, but you need to do it manually you can use vmware-vdiskmanager to make the VMDKs of your Physical partitions, then with a text editor add them to your VMX file.


I ran Vista on my AMD with 10.4.10 without problems.

Hi, thanks for your reply, but I have not been able to get it working with Vista; I always get the b0 error, and when I reboot after following the above steps, the Vista bootloader asks for the DVD, saying winload.exe is corrupted. I seem to get this very frequently if I change any active partition, so to save hassle, I am using the Vista bootloader at the moment. Will it still be possible to use Vista in VMware? Would it help if I downloaded 1.0?

Thanks

I tried to follow this guide but right after I type:
sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk0

I got this:

fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory
Enter 'help' for information

I could never get to the partition list for disk0, on which my Mac OS X and WinXP are installed.

Anybody has idea about this? Thanks!

Ignore the error, just move on (type "print").

I have the same issue, no idea why.

Does nobody have any idea how to help?

Still nobody?

Very thanks work fine !

installed wmware on hd with winxp and leo
it detects boot camp but i got b0 error

so tried this method

closed vmware
but when i type in the terminal

print
-bash: print: command not found


why?

print is a command of fdisk, not bash. do the first part with the fdisk command, then when your prompt looks like

fdisk>

thats where you type print and the rest.

I've tried these methods too, but I also keep getting the b0 error...

Any help is appreciated

i keep getting this error "NOT_REACHED bora/mks/main/mksQuartz.c:1216". i dont have 3D enabled in vmware. i have QE/CI supported....what gives???

Just a quick tip. I was able to get XP to boot in Fusion by flagging the XP partition and using the XP bootloader and tboot to boot into OS X. However, I still can't get XP to run. I get a BSOD when it tries to load the ACPI drivers.

Thanks it's perfect form me; great work.
Only one little problem. when I star VM with bootcamp the follow message appears:

You are ing a 64-bit guest operating system, but the virtual
machine is configured to run a 32-bit operating system.

To ensure that a 64-bit guest operating system will function correctly
you must create a new virtual machine and be sure to select the 64-bit
version of the operating system.

After this message, I click "continue" and Virtual machine start and it's OK.

Any suggestions? Is it possible to set VM 64-bit (mine windows is really XP 64 pro)?
Thanks in advance

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!

I found the solution in this thread http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=74125

Im also getting the b0 error, so I tried to create a new VM in Fusion on aother HD, but I keep getting a message says "Invalid Path" no matter I select the installation disk or installation disk image file at the final stage. Anyone know why? Cheers!

Im getting the 'error 17' problem listed earlier - did anyone ever find a workaround?

I'm using Parallels & easily managed to run Vista from real partition.
I guess in order to run Windows from real partition in Hackintosh you should use Windows bootloader (WinXP or Vista) to boot you whole system. I mean OSX should be booted with Windows bootloader, which loads Darwin boot code. Look what cskena wrote.
BTW, Fusion fails to boot Vista for me.

thanks! worked 4 me

For those who have b0 error, try this way : boot Gparted with your Boot Camp Vitual Machine and then flag the Boot Camp partition with "boot".It works for me but i don't know it will work for you guys or not .
Sorry for my bad english.

Dude there are a lot of folders there. That cant be the answer. I have the B0 error with vmware 1.1 using vista as the guest. Anyone got an idea how to help with this?

THANKS

EDIT damn even after a reinstall it still does not work. Still getting b0 error. Ahhhh WHY

I cant reach GRUB too, It halts with error17 too...

Any solution to this?

Does anybody know if it is possible to mount a VMDK as a physical disk and have it available for a real install for hackintosh?

I wonder if somebody could help me.

I have dual booted XP & JaS Leopard through VMWare under Windows XP, I have booted in to Leopard and installed VMWare Fusion, but when I run the boot camp partition it comes up with an error message.



Please can somebody help me to get this to work.

I am testing All of this under VMWare under Windows before installing Leopard for real.

I hope somebody can help.

All the best

NSCXP2005

Please can somebody help me successfully run XP under VMWare Fusion. Like I said above I have made a dual boot VM & installed VMWare Fusion, but every time I try to run the Boot Camp partition it comes up with the same error.

I hope somebody here has managed to get past this and can advise.

Thank you for your time

NSCXP2005

I Downloaded The New VmWare Fusion Beta 2 and it Run's my Real WIndowsXP HDD with out any modifications.

i have xp already installed and is dual booting using darwin. when i try to get vmware to see it it says its not there but it will boot from a xp disc? any thoughts?

works!
thanks a lot man!

Does this also work with Windows Vista??

Because I've tried this with Vista before, and it always sort of corrupted my Vista installation after a while. My Vista installation becomes "deactivated" and Vista doesn't startup. It will give me an error at startup saying that I have to activate Vista again and re-enter a new activation code... Does this happen to others too?

I have the same issue. Were you able to resolve this? Anybody else has any idea?

yeah same problem

I solved my issue and is now running Windows apps in Unity mode!

It turned out that Fusion didn't like the Windows install that I used (synonym of 'small'). When I installed the XP Pro SP3 using another distribution, Fusion boots up using the Boot Camp partition with no issues at all.

Hi,
I have success with this howto, but when i initialize my windows xp, this screen shows in vmware fusion:
Click to view attachment

anyone know How i do to solve this?

Thanks!!!

Fusion (1.1.3) working on an MBR drive with a WinXP partition installed on the same drive and using a Darwin bootloader...

I did have to use my gray matter a bit as I did also get this problem;



All I did was install chain0 on the XP partition, changed the active partition to XP and booted into OSX to get through steps 1 and 2.

Still having issues? DELETE THE BOOTCAMP CONFIG FILES in the Fusion settings folder, forcing Fusion to re-build them. I'm not sure if I needed to do a Fusion re-install.

Once you get Fusion up and running, change the active partition back to OSX and remove chain0 from the WinXP partition. All will be back to normal and you will have Fusion working!

It really is stunning running full screen and using Spaces to flick from OSX to XP.. or the unity mode.. using F9 F10 F11 on windows apps is hilarious..
And both are on the same HD, on separate partitions. Take your pick at boot, or run XP within OSX. awesome!