cdrom locks up when installing Redhat on a VM

[jboney]

We have a VM that uses an iso image to boot to a redhat install. The users of the VM uses VNC to connect and

install Redhat off the iso. Everything works fine until the install program reboots the VM to boot off of the newly

created OS on the disk.

When this happens, ESX complains with a message

  msg.cdromdisconnect.locked: The gues operating system has locked the CD-ROM door

  and is probablyusing the CD-ROM, which can prevent the gues from recognizing media changes.

  If possible, eject the CD-ROM from inside the gues before disconnecting.

If I click Yes (disconnect anyway ) and click OK the VM keeps booting.  The problem is the users don't have

access to the UI to do this by themselves.  I need to figure out a way to stop this message from occurring.

As anyone else seen this problem?

[ProPenguin]

One option would be an automated script that disconnects the cd drives from the VMs but even with that I have seen issues.  Another option you may check out is network installation of RedHat.  Here is a link that maybe helpful http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Network-Install-HOWTO-6.html I hope this helps.

[jboney]

Using the network install is certianly a good idea, I might have to go to that.

But I think we should be able to use cdrom iso images without getting this lock message.

Does anyone know if there is a setting in the vm.vmx file that we can use to avoid this. Or at least, a way to auto answer this message?