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BeyonceWilder
Contributor
Contributor

Can't access host folders from Win98 guest

I installed Windows 98 SE on Vmware Workstation 12 Pro on a Windows 7 64-bit host. I want to use it to run installers on old video game image files.

Unfortunately, I can't find a way to access files on the host via shared folders (because it's NTFS, I guess). I tried using an USB drive instead (ADATA S102 16GB USB 3.0), but VMware doesn't show it in My Computer. It's formatted in FAT32 and I tried both USB 30. and 2.0 ports on my PC. I get two messages:

- the following devices can be connected to this virtual machine using the status bar... (looks normal)

- the device ADATA USB Flash Drive was unable to connect to its ideal host controller. An attempt will be made to connect this device to the best available host controller. This might result in undefined behavior for this device. (?)

Changing USB compatibility form 3.0 to 2.0 doesn't work. Changing it to 1.1 makes Win98 ask for a driver and I obviously don't have one. The drive does appear in Device Manager as "ADATA USB Flash Drive", however.

By the way, DOSbox doesn't work for some games' installers. It just says the setup won't run in DOS and that's it.

To sum it up: I want to run Win98 on the VM, mount the game's ISO in a virtual CD drive (this works, I already tried), run the installer and pick a folder on the host machine or a USB drive (or just any location that isn't part of the guest Win 98 installation).

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continuum
Immortal
Immortal

USB 2 or even USB 3 ????
You are expecting too much - Windows 98 if I remember right had no USB at all when it appeared.
You should be able to get USB 1 inside the VM - but even that will require doing hours of google-research.

Suggestion: to get files into the guest I would recommend to create ISO-files on the host.
To get files out - I would use a second Fat32-vmdk and mount that from the host when the guest is powered off.


________________________________________________
Do you need support with a VMFS recovery problem ? - send a message via skype "sanbarrow"
I do not support Workstation 16 at this time ...

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BeyonceWilder
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the reply.

I did some testing and it turns out that the USB drive itself was the culprit. I tried another USB driveand now I can see it in the guest VM machine and transfer files.

I also installed this:

http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/win98se-usb-mass-storage-drivers.php

...so maybe that helped as well.

I think you can lock this thread now.

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