nfshp253 Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Hi, I have already installed Snow Leopard on VMware Workstation using a virtual hard drive. I would like to install it on a partition on the laptop's real physical drive to improve performance. However, I ran into a few problems. Firstly, I needed to format the partition to HFS+, which I could not do in Windows (can't find an application that could do so) or using Disk Utility during the install (some VMware error). Secondly, I understand that installing Snow Leopard requires a GUID partition table, which means that I need to reformat the entire hard drive to change the current MBR table. This should be solved when I found a modified OSInstall.pkg which claims to be able to install in a MBR partition table. But the problem of the HFS+ partition remains. How can I solve this problem? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donk Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Hi, I have already installed Snow Leopard on VMware Workstation using a virtual hard drive. I would like to install it on a partition on the laptop's real physical drive to improve performance. However, I ran into a few problems. Firstly, I needed to format the partition to HFS+, which I could not do in Windows (can't find an application that could do so) or using Disk Utility during the install (some VMware error). Secondly, I understand that installing Snow Leopard requires a GUID partition table, which means that I need to reformat the entire hard drive to change the current MBR table. This should be solved when I found a modified OSInstall.pkg which claims to be able to install in a MBR partition table. But the problem of the HFS+ partition remains. How can I solve this problem? I really wouldn't do this, used VMware for 11 years done it once and wasn't worth it! I know you seem to have performance problems but installing to physical partition is dangerous and can screen your machine up. I would try pre-allocated virtual disks first, especially if you have enough room to have the file in contiguous sectors. If you wan to use a physical drive I would recommend a Firewire or USB HDD. I have done that to boot a clone of my real iMac. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/#findComment-1483887 Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulscode Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 I believe you can use Ubunu's GParted to format in HFS+. You could try downloading the 32-bit diskimage, burning it, booting up and choosing "Try Ubuntu", and then running GParted to create and format the partition. There is also a GParted Live diskimage you could google and burn onto CD (smaller than Ubuntu), but I'm not sure if it can format HFS+ (I know an older version I used a couple years ago could not, but at the time I recall reading that HFS+ was planned for a future release - unknown if it is implemented yet). Another option would be to use the Mac OS X disk utility to format the partition to "Mac OS Extended Journaled" by booting into an OSX86 installation disk (iPC for example), or use Empire EFI to boot into a retail OS X installation disk and run the disk utility from there. I don't use VMWare myself, but it seems to me that you could also do this from the VM itself at the time of installation, since it would have access to the physical harddrive? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/#findComment-1483897 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nfshp253 Posted June 7, 2010 Author Share Posted June 7, 2010 Like I said, VMware encountered a problem when it is trying to format the partition for Disk Utility. I'll check to see if GParted can format HFS+ Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/#findComment-1483922 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donk Posted June 7, 2010 Share Posted June 7, 2010 Like I said, VMware encountered a problem when it is trying to format the partition for Disk Utility. I'll check to see if GParted can format HFS+ Seriously don't do this, most VMware experts would say it isn't worth it. VMware did benchmarks and pre-allocated disks are as fast and sometimes faster than physical partitions, due to the code paths inside VMware. Why not create a dedicated data partition and use it's space for a pre-allocated flat VMDK? Out of interest what are you trying to achieve with your use of Mac OS X? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/#findComment-1483933 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nfshp253 Posted June 8, 2010 Author Share Posted June 8, 2010 Seriously don't do this, most VMware experts would say it isn't worth it. VMware did benchmarks and pre-allocated disks are as fast and sometimes faster than physical partitions, due to the code paths inside VMware. Why not create a dedicated data partition and use it's space for a pre-allocated flat VMDK? Out of interest what are you trying to achieve with your use of Mac OS X? I just wanted to do it for fun. Would putting the VMDK on a new partition help speed things up? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/#findComment-1484222 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donk Posted June 8, 2010 Share Posted June 8, 2010 I just wanted to do it for fun. Would putting the VMDK on a new partition help speed things up? Yes create a new partition and then create a pre-allocated VMDK. All the sectors should be contiguous. I once did the physical partition for fun and trashed everything I had installed. Wasn't my idea of fun ;-) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/220402-is-it-possible-to-install-snow-leopard-onto-a-physical-drive-in-vmware-workstation/#findComment-1484326 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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