New to VMware, how do I do....

[tim.pirate]

I want to use VMware on my fedora machine for windows xp. I don't know much on what to do. But I have a hard drive with windows partition on it, so could I somehow use that for the windows for VMware?

[jmadero]

no you can't, you need to make a vmx and then use that. Virtual machines don't use normal partitions, they create "fake" partitions using a single file (for VM it's vmx files)

You'll have to create one using one of several ways. I made mine using this:
HOWTO: Install Windows XP/2000 in VMWare Player - Ubuntu Forums

those are Ubuntu instructions but you might find them helpful. One thing to note:

if you are doing this for games, don't waste your time, no 3d acceleration, most people who are attemping VM's want it for games, that's why I mentioned it

[HROAdmin26]

I want to use VMware on my fedora machine for windows xp. I don't know much on what to do. But I have a hard drive with windows partition on it, so could I somehow use that for the windows for VMware?

Yes, you can - as noted by a few tutorials such as this one.

However, these are advanced techniques using VMWare, so if you're starting out, you may want to get familiar with virtual machines and how to manipulate them before trying something like this.

[jmadero]

interesting, I had never seen that before. That's pretty cool...I think having a vmx is more functional...don't really understand why you wouldn't want it that way vs its own partition

[HROAdmin26]

VMWare puts the "virtual disk" into a .vmdk file/container. The .vmx is a configuration file normally only a few KB in size.

Giving a guest VM direct access to a physical disk is called "raw device mapping" in VMWare terms. It's most commonly done when the VMWare host is SAN-attached and LUN's are carved out and dedicated to guest VM's. This can give better disk performance for VM's.

As the article mentions, the author had an existing dual-boot system and didn't want to install a third OS. Using VMWare, he can just boot his existing Win install while Linux is running.

[b2bwild]

You can use Physical disk on VMware Workstation but not on server. which one you are using.

[HROAdmin26]

You can use Physical disk on VMware Workstation but not on server. which one you are using.

No, you can on Server as well. I just had to rebuild a VM host because someone mapped the internal HDD directly into a Windows guest. Then when Windows formatted the drive, the host OS was toast. A LiveCD boot and fdisk showed only a single "HPFS/NTFS" partition on the HDD.