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Robster50
Contributor
Contributor

Mount DOS formatted 'drive' in Finder??????

Hi

I have a VERY simple task I need to accomplish and I cannot figure out how to do it.

I need to copy a single file I have on my Mac onto a DOS formatted VERY BASIC c: drive on a simple VM.

When I say a simple VM, there is no operating system on the C: drive but the system has a iso CD attached which is used to boot the VM and is for diagnostic purposes for a USB attached disk drive.

DOS is beyond me at the moment!!!!

I was hoping/expecting to be able to mount the Fusion VM 'drive' into Finder and do the copy process there, but I do not seem to be able to mount the drive.

How do I do this?

Cheers.

Robin

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

I was hoping/expecting to be able to mount the Fusion VM 'drive' into Finder and do the copy process there, but I do not seem to be able to mount the drive.

How do I do this?

If the Virtual Machine,s Virtual Hard Drive has a mountable filesystem and you're using Fusion 2.0 you can ctrl-click the Virtual Machine Package and select Open With > VMDKMounter.

Note: The target Virtual Machine must be shutdown, not suspended and without Snapshots in order to be mounted by VMDKMounter and must then be unmounted in order to run the Virtual Machine.

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Robster50
Contributor
Contributor

I just knew there was a way you where supposed to be able to do this however it is not working.

The VM is 'powered down'.

It does not have autoprotect on, so there are no snapshots.

The VM disk was created by VMware as a basic DOS formated partition.

When I try and mount, nothing happens, no error message and no disk gets mounted.

Any thoughts?

Robin

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

It does not have autoprotect on, so there are no snapshots.

Just because AutoProtect is not turned doesn't mean there are no Snapshots. If AutoProtect was on in the past or a Snapshot was taken manually then there could be although if there was you would have gotten a error message.

The VM disk was created by VMware as a basic DOS formated partition.

Did you actually format the virtual hard drive after creating the virtual machine and what filesystem did you format it, FAT or FAT32? Although if you didn't format it with a mountable filesystem you would receive an error when trying to mount it.

When I try and mount, nothing happens, no error message and no disk gets mounted.

Typically if the virtual hard drives mounts it will just show up on the Desktop without any prompts in the process and it usually is a white icon and is named "Untitled". Are there any icons on your Desktop like that?

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Robster50
Contributor
Contributor

Hi

The VM was created with Autoprotect OFF.

I have done NOTHING since creating the VM, do I need to format, if so how?

NOTHING mounts on my desktop or in Finder.

Many thanks for trying to help me out here.

Robin

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WoodyZ
Immortal
Immortal

I have done NOTHING since creating the VM, do I need to format, if so how?

Well you have to format the virtual hard drive or you cannot mount it. If you not installing an OS then the easiest thing to do would be to boot the VM with a DOS Boot Disk Floppy Image and format it FAT32 although you need to do what ever the requirements for you specific needs are. you can also boot the VM with GParted and format it with that as well.

NOTHING mounts on my desktop or in Finder.

Since you hadn't formated the disk yet that's why nothing is mounting on the Desktop however I'm surprised you're not getting an error message when you try.

Message was edited by: WoodyZ

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Robster50
Contributor
Contributor

Hmmmm

1 step forwards 2 steps backwards!

prior to doing anything I guess the VM was spotting there was no formatted HD and asking if I wanted to boot from the CD which worked fine.

Now I have used gpated to format the drive it appears the VM is seeing a HD but with no system on it, it just sits there.

I am no longer given the option of booting from CD!

When I used to use Parallels I had the option of assigning boot priority to a floppy, CD or HD, I cannot find a similar option ANYWHERE under Fusion!

Any ideas?

Cheers.

Robin

PS Still cannot mount the VM in Finder though!

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I had the option of assigning boot priority to a floppy, CD or HD, I cannot find a similar option ANYWHERE under Fusion!

Just like with a physical computer, you set the boot priority in the (virtual) BIOS. The catch is that it flashes by very quickly - if you're unable to catch it, see or for how to slow it down or force entry to the BIOS.

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