VMware Player can't connect to usb drive

[garagedays]

I am using Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit 6.1.7601, Service Pack 1 and have installed VMware Player 5.0.2 build-1031769.

I am connecting a seagate 1tb usb hdd to my pc after i have opened VMware player.  I am trying to connect to the usb drive in order to run a virtual image off of the drive.  the external drive connects to the host pc instead of the VMware Player.  In the player it recognizes the drive and i click on disconnect from host and connect to the player but it gives the error "The connection for the usb device" seagate" was unsuccessful the device is currently in use"  I have gone to the host pc and have ejected the device but i end up with the same error.

Any advice on how I can connect this usb hdd to the player?

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Cameron

[RDPetruska]

Not a direct answer to your question, but is there any reason you don't want to just connect it to the host and then from your guest map to it as a shared network drive?

[WoodyZ]

garagedays wrote: I am connecting a seagate 1tb usb hdd to my pc after i have opened VMware player.  I am trying to connect to the usb drive in order to run a virtual image off of the drive.

If the Virtual Machine is stored on the USB Drive and you're running the Virtual Machine from the USB Drive you cannot then also connect the USB Drive to the Virtual Machine!

However to be frank though, how you've described things is somewhat confusing!

[garagedays]

I apologize, technically I have created a new virtual machine on my C drive, I have a new third party backup image on the usb drive I am trying to connect to in order to install the OS image.  I am trying to find a way to easily use acronis true image home 2013 tib drive images as a way to simply connect to it as an image and run the image.  Creating a new vm machine and then having to use acronis boot cd to install from an image on a usb drive is not the easy method i am looking for, but for the time being I thought I could get the os installed on the vm machine and start using it.

Thanks, Cameron

[garagedays]

I am new to VM software and had a hard time figuring out how to connect the guest to a shared network drive.  If you have a how to on how to connect the guest to a network drive I am all ears.

Thanks, Cameron

[RDPetruska]

garagedays wrote:

I am new to VM software and had a hard time figuring out how to connect the guest to a shared network drive.  If you have a how to on how to connect the guest to a network drive I am all ears.

Thanks, Cameron

Standard SAMBA filesharing - any hard drive connected to your host should automatically have the hidden administrative share created by default (e.g \\yourpcname\D$).  Just map to that from your guest.

Now, looking at the post above this one, trying to do it at boot time will require something different, as you won't be in a Windows environment yet - so you likely would need to attach the device directly to the VM so that the Acronis boot disk/disc could see the drive where the backup images are stored.

[WoodyZ]

Okay, that's more clear, however just to recap...  you have a "true image home 2013 tib" image on the USB Drive that you want to restore to a newly created empty VM, right?  Then boot the VM from the necessary boot media that can restore the image while at the same time can see the USB Drive if attached to the VM or as a Windows Shared Resource.  I use Symantec Norton Ghost on Physical Machines and when I boot a VM with an ISO Image containing Ghost (and other utilities) I can restore the image whether it's on Optical Media, External FireWire/USB and or a Network Share.  I do not know if True Image can do the same, although I'd assume it can too.

I have also partitioned/formatted the virtual hard disk and them mounted it under Windows and used Ghost32.exe to drop the image onto the virtual hard disk and then unmounted it and the run the VM.  That said however, if this is an image from a physical machine and you drop it on a Virtual Machine then it will not boot properly until you rectify the Hardware Driver Issues and Windows Registry Entries (assuming this is a Windows image).