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Note: I am on a Macbook Pro and so I should not be violating the Apple EULA for virtualizing MacOS.

I am trying to use VMWare Workstation to boot my MacOS partition while in Bootcamp (while working in Windows, I occasionally want to check on something in Xcode or use iMessage), much like I am able to boot my Bootcamp partition while in MacOS. Theoretically, this should be possible, however I think I am running into issues with VMWare because of the new partitions that High Sierra and Mojave use (APFS) - my MacOS partition is an APFS partition running Mojave.

I am getting the following error message when trying to add a hard disk in VMWare player (14 & 15 both) - I have previously used the unlocker so that MacOS VMs are allowed as apparently VMWare Player doesn't automatically recognize Apple hardware:

Failed to Load Partitions for Device \\.\PhysicalDrive0: The partition table is invalid

So I've looked at my partition table for this drive, and the only partitions are the EFI partition (not sure what format this is in), the MacOS partition (APFS), and my Bootcamp partition (NTFS).

Is there a way to make it so that VMWare recognizes APFS partitions (or whatever else might be happening here)?

I've tried this process, but it does nothing for me:

https://licson.net/post/vmware-apfs/

I still get the same partition table issue.

Note - there's no issue with my partition table as far as I can tell - I can boot into Windows or MacOS without issue.

Note, I do NOT want to do a separate VM - which I know is possible - I only want to boot my native MacOS partition

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    Good point that this is 'within licensing terms', however, I very much doubt VMWare Workstation can read APFS, or even know what it is yet. I'd say 'wait a year'... at least... or consider running "Win in Mac" not "Mac in Win". The way Mac fools Win into thinking it has an NTFS/MBR partition is not trivial & potentially a Gordian Knot to invert from the Win side.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 20:01
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    Additionally, "VMWare Workstation" being designed to run on "non-Apple" hardware has no provisioning built-in to run macOS, precisely because of the licensing issue. [with the proviso that the licson page left me staring into space, blankly ;)
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 20:03
  • Yeah, that's about what I thought. My use-case is an unexpected one and unfortunately it seems like there's essentially zero support for it. It appears that it was possible back when Apple used HFS+, but with APFS being so new, nobody has caught up with it yet.
    – Thomas St. James
    Commented Oct 29, 2018 at 20:31
  • VMware Workstation/Player in principle should be able to support your configuration without legal issues. However, the unfortunate reality is that that configuration is rare enough that wasn't worthwhile to add support for it.
    – jamesdlin
    Commented Oct 31, 2018 at 3:48

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