#26 The .vmdk file 's CID is changed even mounted as read only

[ccchan]

hi~

I wanna keep files inside .vmdk and upload to cloud as storage.
so after each step, i will use tools to compare the checksums.

I found that the .vmdk file, the "CID" item is changed even
the vmdk is mounted as read only.

The "CID" item doesn't look like important as i change it into
12345678 and the vmdk still mount and could be read.

Just see if this behaviour could be changed so as to relief one's
worry of corrupted .vmdk file. (which is an important file i think)

Thanks.

[v77]

Pretty strange indeed, especially when I think that the GUI already mounts the volumes, in read-only, to determine their sizes and file systems and display them in the list.

OK, I just found what's wrong. When mounted with DiscUtils, only the ImDisk driver is informed to create a read-only volume. But not DiscUtils (through DiscUtilsDevio), so DiscUtils is still able to change the files, even if it receives no write request.
This does not occur when I list the partitions because the /readonly switch is also specified for DiscUtilsDevio.

Nice find! This is an important bug, I will fix that right away.
Thanks for the report.

[ccchan]

hi.

is it simple and be possible for you to share how you know the error that
imdisk and the utilities tell you?

becoz I moved the 2GB vmdks and the explorer died,
(it seems suddenly i cant mount, so i moved them)
I always put the .vmdk in the same folder as the 2GB vmdks.
and I cant mount back the vmdk.
so i wanna troubleshoot myself.

thanks.

[v77]

You can try to open a command prompt with administrative privileges, and then use DiscUtilsDevio from the installation directory (run it without argument to see the syntax).
However, if you run it this way, unmount the volume before shutting down the system (otherwise, the system will not be able to stop).

Did you try to move the files when they were in use?

[ccchan]

dont think i move them when they were in use but
cant rule out, as I am new to imdisk's GUI and
only recently use the ""imdisk driver"" program to check whether anything is mounted.
(before that i fly blind by using only the mount image.exe)

thanks

[ccchan]

hi
thank you, i think i solved.

by following the library's author's guide on the thread the day before on how to mount using
discutildevio,

i used discutilsdevio as you say.

the system say
"System.IO.IOException: The process cannot access the file 'm:\asdvd002h-s001.vmdk' because it is being used by another process.""

then I killed any imdisk-alike process in task manager,
and can mount agian.

it scared me enough.
thank you.

[v77]

Be careful, you should never kill DiscUtilsDevio (and other imdisk proxy such as RamDyn).
A proxy processes requests transmitted by the imdisk driver. If it is killed, the driver can endlessly wait an answer from the proxy, and this can freeze a large part of the system.
And of course in this case, it is impossible to cleanly unmount the volume.

That said, if you succeeded to reboot your system, everything should now be fine.

[ccchan]

the process i killed shd be imdisk-xxxxx in task manager, users. but I didn't see it if
I can normally mount the image, at this moment.

let me see if i will encounter it later and post it's name here.

anyway killing that process is the way i can get thru the above ""file xxx-s01.vmdk is used by other process"" problem.

thanks

[ccchan]

today when I wanna mount,
it did show the size of the vmdk correctly,

but when press "mount",
it say än error occured while the mounting. please check the parameters".

thanks

[v77]

I don't see what's wrong. This error can occur if the file is already mounted, but in this case, with the current version, you should not see the size in the list of the GUI.

[ccchan]

thx, solved as in a reply to above of your msg.

but "" the system may run forever..."not sure you mean if the drive is not
unmounted cleanly, it will run forever and stop me from mounting, even
i rebooted?

thanks

[ccchan]

i tried reboot several times before so i think it need manually killing the process in task manager,
and i wont even know that case if I didn't file this ticket.
a little bit tricky.
thanks

[ccchan]

happily using, thank you.

[v77]

And thanks to you for your reports.
A new release should come in a few days.