Return to Question

I'm trying to setup a VMware Virtual Machine under a Windows 10 host.

I currently have 1 hard drive split into 2 partitions, currently using Ubuntu with dual boot.

I would like to mount the Ubuntu as a guest in Windows host.

I have been trying to setup the Ubuntu partition using the Physical Disk option under VMware (I've tried IDE, SCSI, Sata). If I tell the VMware to use entire disk, I will get "current disk is in use" message. If I select only the relevant Linux partitions, it will say "Cannot find operating system".

What's strange is my Linux partition is showing up as "Efi system" under File System column, whereas I thought it was supposed to say "Linux" under File System. Should I try to first change the file system of that partition to Linux instead of Efi? (How would I do that?)

VMware should be able to let me run an Ubuntu partition as a guest even if it is on the same hard drive as the host, right?

Edit: To clarify, the above info is reported by VMware-Workstation.

However, under Ubuntu Gparted this is how my partitions look like:

My current SSD harddrive is currently setup this way (according to Linux GParted)

• /dev/nvme0n1p1 ntfs (diag)
• /dev/nvme0n1p2 fat32 (boot,esp)
• /dev/nvme0n1p3 unknown (msftres) [Microsoft Reserved Partition whatever that is]
• /dev/nvme0n1p4 ntfs (msftdata) [This is the Windows 10 partition]
• /dev/nvme0n1p5 ext4 (boot, esp) [This is my Ubuntu partition]
• /dev/nvme0n1p6 linux-swap
• /dev/nvme0n1p7 ntfs (hidden, diag)

GParted also reports that mount point / is on nvme0n1p5 & mount point /boot/efi on nvme0n1p2.

[now I'm confused, did my Ubuntu machine boot from nvme0n1p5 (with flag boot) or nvme0n1p2 (with mount point /boot/efi)?]

Anyway, I've tried to attach both partitions to Physical Disk hard drive option of Windows 10 VMWare-Workstation but the machine still won't boot the guest Ubuntu.

I can dual-boot (by switching "hard drive order" in BIOS - [even though there's only one harddrive!]) but what I would like to do is to boot & run the Ubuntu partition from within Windows.

I'm trying to setup a VMware Virtual Machine under a Windows 10 host.

I currently have 1 hard drive split into 2 partitions, currently using Ubuntu with dual boot.

I would like to mount the Ubuntu as a guest in Windows host.

I have been trying to setup the Ubuntu partition using the Physical Disk option under VMware (I've tried IDE, SCSI, Sata). If I tell the VMware to use entire disk, I will get "current disk is in use" message. If I select only the relevant Linux partitions, it will say "Cannot find operating system".

What's strange is my Linux partition is showing up as "Efi system" under File System column, whereas I thought it was supposed to say "Linux" under File System. Should I try to first change the file system of that partition to Linux instead of Efi? (How would I do that?)

VMware should be able to let me run an Ubuntu partition as a guest even if it is on the same hard drive as the host, right?

Edit: To clarify, the above info is reported by VMware-Workstation.

However, under Ubuntu Gparted this is how my partitions look like:

My current SSD harddrive is currently setup this way (according to Linux GParted)

• /dev/nvme0n1p1 ntfs (diag)
• /dev/nvme0n1p2 fat32 (boot,esp)
• /dev/nvme0n1p3 unknown (msftres) [Microsoft Reserved Partition whatever that is]
• /dev/nvme0n1p4 ntfs (msftdata) [This is the Windows 10 partition]
• /dev/nvme0n1p5 ext4 (boot, esp) [This is my Ubuntu partition]
• /dev/nvme0n1p6 linux-swap
• /dev/nvme0n1p7 ntfs (hidden, diag)

GParted also reports that mount point / is on nvme0n1p5 & mount point /boot/efi on nvme0n1p2.

[now I'm confused, did my Ubuntu machine boot from nvme0n1p5 (with flag boot) or nvme0n1p2 (with mount point /boot/efi)?]

Anyway, I've tried to attach both partitions to Physical Disk hard drive option of Windows 10 VMWare-Workstation but the machine still won't boot the guest Ubuntu.

I can dual-boot (by switching "hard drive order" in BIOS - [even though there's only one harddrive!]) but what I would like to do is to boot & run the Ubuntu partition from within Windows.

Edit 2:

I think I might be understanding the problem a bit more:

1. upon first boot, I select Windows 10 EFI as boot option
2. in windows, I setup a virtual machine to run the second partition in the same hard drive that's currently running as host
3. but to boot the second partition, I must tell virtual machine setup to run the same EFI boot manager as (1)
4. it fails to run the EFI boot manager (is it in use?) and drops me to an Internal EFI shell
5. from EFI Shell I can select a filesystem and cd into /efi/boot and see some .efi files there, but I don't know how to boot from those .efi files.

Can anyone tell me how to boot an .efi file from the Internal EFI Shell?

I'm trying to setup a VMware Virtual Machine under a Windows 10 host.

I currently have 1 hard drive split into 2 partitions, currently using Ubuntu with dual boot.

I would like to mount the Ubuntu as a guest in Windows host.

I have been trying to setup the Ubuntu partition using the Physical Disk option under VMware (I've tried IDE, SCSI, Sata). If I tell the VMware to use entire disk, I will get "current disk is in use" message. If I select only the relevant Linux partitions, it will say "Cannot find operating system".

What's strange is my Linux partition is showing up as "Efi system" under File System column, whereas I thought it was supposed to say "Linux" under File System. Should I try to first change the file system of that partition to Linux instead of Efi? (How would I do that?)

VMware should be able to let me run an Ubuntu partition as a guest even if it is on the same hard drive as the host, right?

I'm trying to setup a VMware Virtual Machine under a Windows 10 host.

I currently have 1 hard drive split into 2 partitions, currently using Ubuntu with dual boot.

I would like to mount the Ubuntu as a guest in Windows host.

I have been trying to setup the Ubuntu partition using the Physical Disk option under VMware (I've tried IDE, SCSI, Sata). If I tell the VMware to use entire disk, I will get "current disk is in use" message. If I select only the relevant Linux partitions, it will say "Cannot find operating system".

What's strange is my Linux partition is showing up as "Efi system" under File System column, whereas I thought it was supposed to say "Linux" under File System. Should I try to first change the file system of that partition to Linux instead of Efi? (How would I do that?)

VMware should be able to let me run an Ubuntu partition as a guest even if it is on the same hard drive as the host, right?

Edit: To clarify, the above info is reported by VMware-Workstation.

However, under Ubuntu Gparted this is how my partitions look like:

My current SSD harddrive is currently setup this way (according to Linux GParted)

• /dev/nvme0n1p1 ntfs (diag)
• /dev/nvme0n1p2 fat32 (boot,esp)
• /dev/nvme0n1p3 unknown (msftres) [Microsoft Reserved Partition whatever that is]
• /dev/nvme0n1p4 ntfs (msftdata) [This is the Windows 10 partition]
• /dev/nvme0n1p5 ext4 (boot, esp) [This is my Ubuntu partition]
• /dev/nvme0n1p6 linux-swap
• /dev/nvme0n1p7 ntfs (hidden, diag)

GParted also reports that mount point / is on nvme0n1p5 & mount point /boot/efi on nvme0n1p2.

[now I'm confused, did my Ubuntu machine boot from nvme0n1p5 (with flag boot) or nvme0n1p2 (with mount point /boot/efi)?]

Anyway, I've tried to attach both partitions to Physical Disk hard drive option of Windows 10 VMWare-Workstation but the machine still won't boot the guest Ubuntu.

I can dual-boot (by switching "hard drive order" in BIOS - [even though there's only one harddrive!]) but what I would like to do is to boot & run the Ubuntu partition from within Windows.