[ONEderer]

Greetings!

If you already installed VMWare and a guest OS, compared to me that makes you quite an expert. I am trying VMWare for the first time, and aborted the installation because of things that I don't understand clearly, and have been unable to get proper answers for my questions.
My current setup:
/dev/hda1= LiLo Boot in MBR LiLo belongs to Mandrake 9.2 which resides in /dev/hdb
/dev/hda2 = Windows XP Pro (C:\ drive) VMWare lives under this OS.
/dev/hdb = Mandrake-Linux 9.2

Target trial "guest" OS = Vector-Linux

Directory was created by VMWare to install the "guest" OS, and then started the intallation of Vector-Linux. I didn't know what designation that I should use for the virtual hard drive for the guest installation, so that it would not interfere with with my existing partitions and drive names, on the host system. Does it make any difference if I use the same hard drive designations as the host system? I am aware that if it were a real separate computer, then it would not make any difference. However, what if I call the guest hard drive, /dev/hda x (same as the host's /dev/hda x)? How about /dev/sda x? Would it cause a conflict? This, I was not sure of. The next thing, is when Vector-Linux correctly identified my existing host's hard drives. On this I panicked. If it can see them, then it can destroy them. I was not sure if it wanted to format my host's hard drives or the virtual hard drive. As far as Vector-Linux was concerned, it was ready to install itself into a regular system. And that "guest" OS doesn't offer a graphical repersentation of what the partitioning situation would look like, to give me a mental picture of the situation, as opposed to Mandrake which clearly shows a GUI of the situation.

How do I make sure that the "guest" OS only fools around with the virtual hard drive, and not the physical "host's" setup? It bothers me that it could "see" the actual setup of the host . What should I use so the hard drives designations don't interfere with the virtual hard drive? /dev/hdx x?

I actually spend hours, yesterday, trying to find answers to these questions. I can only conclude that the numerous authors who have done installations of this setup, probably didn't have an existing dual boot system, so they were not concerned about conflicts and drive formatting. They probably they took it for granted that everyone already knows about this, and it wasn't worth mentioning it, or giving a play-by-play. Either that, or they got lucky the first time they tried it. But I sure would like to be able to accomplish this without any painful errors, the first time out. And that comes through clear understanding of the situation.

Cheers!
ONEderer