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tagew
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Newbie - Where did my Boot Camp partition go???

Hi,

I just installed the VMware Fusion beta and it's great. I'm running it on a MacBook pro and I have no problems with getting windows to run.

When I installed it, i set it up to use my bootcamp partition. The question is: I used to be able to access my bootcamp partition from Finder, but since installing VMware, the bootcamp partition is gone from finder. Is this normal?

I would use this only to share files between Finder and Windows, so I tried to set up shared folder in VM ware according to the instructions in the online help, but to no avail. Setting it up was easy, but I can't find the folder in Windows. What should I do?

Thankful for help

/Tage Widsell

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_doty_
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Sorry about that I totally missed the second question about shared folders.

From what I've read of your post it sounds like you have successfully added a shared folder. Make sure "Enabled" is checked. If everything has been setup correctly in the VMware settings for the bootcamp virtual machine then all you need to do is map a network drive in windows to the share that you created. Here are step by step instructions:

-Open windows explorer

-Within explorer click "Tools", then select "Map Network Drive..." If you don't see the Tools menu item then just do the following keyboard shortcut "Alt", then "t", and finally "n"

-You should now be seeing a new dialogue box for mapping a Network Drive

-Select the drive letter you would like to associate with the shared folder (the drive letter doesn't matter, so pick what you would like)

-Now in the "Folder" input box type the following (without quotes) "
.host\shared folders\NAME OF YOUR SHARED FOLDER" replace the part in all caps with the name that you specified for the shared folder in the VMware settings for the bootcamp virtual machine.

-With that done make sure "Reconnect at logon" is checked and click "Finish"

-If all goes well you should now have a mapped drive to your shared folder

I'm sure I'll hear from you one way or another if you were successful or not. Hopefully this will work for you, if not we'll have to figure out if the settings are of in the virtual machine. Best of luck!

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IgMa
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I believe that the only way to get the Boot Camp partition back on your Mac OS X desktop is to restart the Mac OS X itself. I have the same problem, and the only way I can access it is when I am not using it virtually. Basically any virtual program like VMware Fusion or Parallels makes the bootcamp partition a virtual partition, so it seems as if it does not exist on you actual hard drive. That is the reason why you can't access it.

Also, in my experience creating a separate virtual machine works much faster than using the bootcamp partition.

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bgertzfield
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Your Boot Camp partition is still there. Fusion just doesn't currently re-mount the partition when you exit; it's a known issue we're working on.

This is from the VMware Fusion release notes:

http://www.vmware.com/support/fusion/doc/releasenotes_fusion.html

===

After powering on a Boot Camp virtual machine, when you power off the virtual machine or quit VMware Fusion, VMware Fusion fails to remount the Boot Camp partition.[/b]

As a result of this problem, the Boot Camp partition is not visible in System Preferences > Startup Disk. To work around this problem, open Disk Utility ( Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.app) and remount the Boot Camp partition manually.

===

You can also hold down Option when you reboot to select your Windows partition manually.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

_doty_
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I found the same problem quite annoying. What I did as a solution was create workflow in Automator that runs a shell script which mounts the bootcamp disk for you. That way you don't have to restart, open diskt utility or even open another window. All you do is secondary click and choose Automator from the context menu then select the workflow you created and it does all the work!

For those interested here's the step by step process I used to create the workflow.

-Make sure you have Automator installed, it came installed by default on my macbook pro

-Secondary click your desktop and then choose the "Automator" option, then click "Create Workflow..."

-You can either type "Run Shell Script" in the search box of Automator or you can find Run Shell Script in the "Actions" frame

-Double click the "Run Shell Script" in the "Actions" frame to create an action item

-Make sure the "Shell" dropdown list has "/bin/bash" selected

-Make sure the "Pass Input" list has "to stdin" selected

-Replace the word "cat" in the input box with this line with out quotes "diskutil mount disk0s3"

-Change the disk0s3 to whatever your windows partition is. For most people running boot camp on a single hard drive this will be the default windows location so you don't need to change anything.

-Now do a "command S" or go to file and select "Save..."

-When saving create a name that you can associate with the workflow just created. I used "Mount Vista HD"

-Also make sure the "Where" drop down has "Finder" selected, and "File Format" has "Workflow" selected

-Click "Save" and your done.

Next time you are done using the bootcamp partition all you need to do to get your disk to remount is secondary click the desktop, select Automator and you'll now see the new workflow you just created. Click the new item and your disk is now mounted!

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. I'm still a bit new to mac, only been using it for a few months so there may be some terms that are more windows specific that may confuse some people. I hope this will benefit you as much as it has me.

Enjoy!!!

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Jimbode
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Fantastic description for someone only using a Mac for a few months. I've had my Mac mini for a bit longer and still not quite sussed the Automator workflow stuff. Thanks

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genjo
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Another way to manually mount the Boot Camp Partition is to go your Mac OS Utility Folder launch "Disk Utility" select the Boot Camp (Windows) Partition and press the mount button at the top of Disk Utility window.

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getwired
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If you're familiar with Quicksilver, sounds like a great thing to build an Automator script for, then throw into a trigger...

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tagew
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Thank you for the explanation - that's really helpful.

Any idea about the second question - why I can't get my shared folders working?

Best regards

Tage Widsell

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_doty_
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Sorry about that I totally missed the second question about shared folders.

From what I've read of your post it sounds like you have successfully added a shared folder. Make sure "Enabled" is checked. If everything has been setup correctly in the VMware settings for the bootcamp virtual machine then all you need to do is map a network drive in windows to the share that you created. Here are step by step instructions:

-Open windows explorer

-Within explorer click "Tools", then select "Map Network Drive..." If you don't see the Tools menu item then just do the following keyboard shortcut "Alt", then "t", and finally "n"

-You should now be seeing a new dialogue box for mapping a Network Drive

-Select the drive letter you would like to associate with the shared folder (the drive letter doesn't matter, so pick what you would like)

-Now in the "Folder" input box type the following (without quotes) "
.host\shared folders\NAME OF YOUR SHARED FOLDER" replace the part in all caps with the name that you specified for the shared folder in the VMware settings for the bootcamp virtual machine.

-With that done make sure "Reconnect at logon" is checked and click "Finish"

-If all goes well you should now have a mapped drive to your shared folder

I'm sure I'll hear from you one way or another if you were successful or not. Hopefully this will work for you, if not we'll have to figure out if the settings are of in the virtual machine. Best of luck!

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tagew
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Thank you very much. This worked as it should. The online help is a bit ambigous as to what to enter in the map network drive field, but this worked.

Best regards

Tage Widsell

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