CD access in Workstation

[Koppie]

My guest OS (Win XP SP2) has trouble accessing the CD. It says:

"The drive is not ready for use; its door may be open. Please check drive 😧 and make sure that a disk is inserted and that the drive door is closed."

The options are Cancel, Try Again, or Continue. No matter what I press, it will try to access the CD a few more times and then fail. Then it says:

"Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed."

Sometimes I can see the files on the disc, but I can't access them. This has happened with every cd I try putting in. I've run the same VM on my wife's computer and it can read cd's fine so I don't think it's a problem with the guest OS. The cd also works fine in my host (Kubuntu Fiesty).

Here are my vital stats:

Guest: Windows XP SP2

Host: Kubuntu Fiesty

VMware Workstation 6.0 beta

VM cd settings:

Connected

Connect at power on

Use physical drive: Auto detect

Connect exclusively to this virtual machine

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

[oreeh]

don't use autodetect - specify the drive instead

[Koppie]

Thanks for your reply! I specified the drive (and I made sure it was pointing to the right place) but same problem.

Any other ideas?

[oreeh]

Sure

\- try the legacy emulation

\- create an ISO image and use the image instead

[Koppie]

Well that didn't fix it but at least it doesn't say "The drive is not ready for use" a million times. It still says "Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed." It looks like it can see the files on the CD, but won't read them.

Ripping an ISO image is a good idea (that's how I installed the OS in the first place) but I want to be able to use many cd's on a regular basis and that will be a major problem for my workflow.

I checked the button saying "Connect exclusively to this VM" but I can still access the cd from the host OS. When I do the same thing with a USB device (exclusive access), it unmounts it from the host before I can use it in the guest. That's not happening with the cd. Maybe the problem is with Workstation? Is there a solution to this?

[oreeh · Accepted solution]

It could be a problem with the type of CD-ROM device (DVD, DVD writer, CD writer) your are using too.

If this is possible try another drive.

[Koppie]

It's actually a problem that (K)Ubuntu Feisty (my host) has been having with some cd drives (mostly Sony). The new kernel should fix it.

Thanks for your help!

Message was edited by:

Koppie