CD-ROM not working on 20" iMac

[patrnel]

I installed XP from an iso image on a DVD contained in the MSDN package. Now that I have finished the installation and ejected the DVD I am no longer able to connect to the CD-ROM drive. It is still looking for that image and does not recognize the CD-ROM as an image in and of itself. I am sure that there is a setting that I can point it to somewhere else but being a relative newbie to VMWARE I am not sure where to start. The error that I am getting is:

File "/Volumes/ EN_OS_ISO_2429.3/ENGLISH.../EN_WINDOWS_XP_PRO_WITH_SP2.ISO" does not exist and therefore cannot be connected as a CD-ROM image.

Failed to connect to virutal device idle1:0.

I get the same error if I try to turn it on from VM Tools. Thanks for any help.

P Nelson

[HPReg]

Have you checked that the file does indeed exist in a terminal window or in the Finder? In the file name you copied, there seems to be a space between Volumes/ and EN_OS_ISO_2429.3. It might be the cause of the problem.

Also do you have permissions to open this file as the user who is running the VM?

[rcardona2k]

Have you tried clearing the ide device with this ISO reference from your VM's vmx config file? You'll have to do this when the VM is powered off, i.e. not suspended.

[patrnel]

I found the line in the vmx vile:

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.fileName = "Windows XP Professional.vmdk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "/Volumes/EN_OS_ISO_2429.3/ENGLISH/WINXP/ISO/PRO_WITH_SP2/EN_WINDOWS_XP_PRO_WITH_SP2.ISO"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

What should I replace the "/Volumes/EN_OS...WITH_SP2.iso" with?

Thanks

[patrnel]

Ahhhh, I got it here is the correct setting...

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"

Thank you for the help!

[rcardona2k]

Basically you changed the cd-rom drive from the ISO file to your host's physical drive and that's fine. You could have just disconnected the ISO from the Virtual Machine menu.

[admin]

There's actually a known bug about this - if a VM starts up with a ISO attached, you can't switch to a physical device without power cycling the VM.

[jennyberglund]

Before trying to mess with the .vmx file:

Have you tried going to the Virtual Machine->CD-ROM menu and selecting "Use physical CD-ROM"? That should let you connect the virtual CD drive to the physical one on the host. If it doesn't work right away. Try connecting/disconnecting the device (through the menu or toolbar), or restarting the VM.

[patrnel]

A combination of all the above also worked. I had already saved the old version of the VMX file. I reloaded it and told it to connect to the physical drive from the menu. This failed in that session so I rebooted the virtual machine and it cranked right up. So either works; edit the vmx file as shown above or change the setting on the menu and reboot.

Thanks so much to all of you for your contributions.

[Dr_Dave]

I have had the same problem and took your suggestion, "before messing with the .vmx file.

Note that connecting/disconnecting did not work, but everything worked after restarting the vm.

Thank you.

Somewhat related, I have two built-in DVD drives. Only my second one works now. Would I have to modify the .vmx to get both to work. If so, what would the code look like?

Thanks again

[rcardona2k]

Part of the problem is that VMware uses a magic string called "auto detect" to bridge media in either drive to your VM, e.g. these are the lines in my .vmx config file

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

ide0:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ide0:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"[/code]

It sounds like you're asking to hardwire[/i] each CD/DVD drive to a specific host device. This could be accomplished by changing the fileName line to a raw device name like, /dev/disk1s1. (I got that device name by inserting a disc into my MBP's drive and issuing a mount command.) But I would say the benefit of accessing both drives by using a raw device name is somewhat outweighed by the convenience VMware provides as part of "auto detect." Still you could try it and let us know if this works.

[Dr_Dave]

Thank you for the suggestion.

"

When I added these lines to the .vmx file I got a "syntax error, line 13" (which is the first line here) when I tried to start the vm.

I'm a bit surprised by the error as the syntax certainly "looks" correct. I tried placing your lines of code, first, before my existing IDE references and when it did not work, I places your lines after my existing IDE references...the the same result, "syntax error."

Any other ideas?

David

[Dr_Dave]

Got it working now! It seems when I "activated" my initial DVD, the following command was placed at the end of my .vmx file: ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

Once I noticed this, I simply moved that command to the location in the .vmx file that had my other IDE commands and then duplicated the entire set of IDE commands and then changed "ide1" to "ide0" in the copied set. Following is what my .vmx file looks like.

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ide0:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

ide0:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

ide0:0.startConnected = "TRUE"

Thank you for your help.

David

[Dr_Dave]

Hmmm...here is something interesting.

Once I got BOTH of my DVD drives working in the VM, I could not access them from outside of the VM -- in other words, through my normal OS.

As a result and for those who have two DVD drives, you may only want to access one of them through your VM...which makes my entire previous problem irrelevent!

However, I now wonder if there is a way to "share" a DVD drive. Perhaps there is a .vmx command that allows this.

David

[rcardona2k]

(On editing the .vmx file, did you use TextEdit? There's a known problem adding multiple lines where TextEdit uses a different end-of-line (EOL) character than in the .vmx file)

AFAIK, you can't share the attached media such that the VM and host are contending for reads simultaneously. You can however disconnect the CD/DVD device from the toolbar (by clicking until the green dot disappears) while the VM is running that should release the drive for host use. Any inserted media may not mount automatically, etc but in theory the VM is no longer using it. When you want to re-dedicate the drive to the VM you can reconnect the device by clicking on the toolbar again.

[Dr_Dave]

Right again...sorty of. In fact, I cut and pasted the lines from your previous message into the .vmx file. However, in the end, I deleded these line and then copied the already existing lines from within the .vmx and that worked.

You will be interested to know that you were right too on the disabling/enabling the DVD drives from the vm by clicking the related toolbar icon.

Life is good....

David

P.S. with vmware installed, I think I need to go fro 4GBs of memory to 8! lol