DVD/CD not recognized in workstation

[Martina20111014]

I have a IBM T510 running win 7 as host for  workstation 7.1.4.

It has a Matshita DVD/CD drive that shows up as a USB device when a CD/DVD is inserted in the drive.

When I boot up work station or try to connect after its up, I get "ide device not found".

I did select "show all USB devices" and see the mouse, the camera, the ..., but no DVD/CD drive.

I'm almost thinking its a workstation bug, but I still have some hope that there is something I can do.

Thanks

Martina

[WoodyZ]

I have a IBM T510 running win 7 as host for  workstation 7.1.4.

It has a Matshita DVD/CD drive that shows up as a USB device when a CD/DVD is inserted in the drive.

Just to be clear, are you talking about an internal Optical Drive or a External USB Optical Drive that you've plugged into the IBM T510?

[Martina20111014]

Its an internal optical drive. properties say

Name: Matshita DVD RAM UJ890

Type: DVD/CD-ROM drives

[WoodyZ]

In your OP you stated "It has a Matshita DVD/CD drive that shows up as a USB device when a CD/DVD is inserted in the drive." so just where is ths device showing up as a USB Device?  Screen Shot would be nice.

[Martina20111014]

I guess its not then. I can eject it through the "safely remove hardware and eject media".

It gets turned off and on and sometimes changes drive letters. I just told it to stay on and also reassigned the drive letter to D.

I'm attaching a screnn shot that show win explorer of the host with a CD in the CD drive and the error I get after doing VM - removable devices - CD/DVD - connect, with settings at "physical drive"

[Martina20111014]

no now that we have figured out that it is a "regular" DVD/cd drive and not a usb drive, any advice on how to make it work in workstation?

[WoodyZ]

I did not reply to you previous last post because you blacked out a section of the tile bar of the error message for which I see no practical reason for you having done so and therefore I was not going to bother wasting my time asking for a copy of the .vmx configuration file and vmware*.log files for the VM as sometimes access to the technical information is easier to troubleshoot an issue then going back and forth asking a bunch of questions without first having the technical facts especially in light of your confusion of an internal Optical Drive being shown as a USB device which it is not.

So if you'd like to archive (compress) the .vmx configuration file and vmware*.log files for the VM into a single .zip archive and attach it to a reply then I'll take a further look at the situation otherwise someone else will have to help as I don't have the time to waste going back and forth without access to the technical output for the VM.

[ItsMeHere]

OK, so now that you understood that not every device you can "safely remove" is a USB device, did you already check for the CD device definition in Workstation's VM configuration panel? In case it is set to something different from "Auto detect", you might run into difficulties if the referred resource is unavailable. Another screenshot of this panel might be helpful (the details, of course).

Please note that I don't want to jump in for WoodyZ (already by the sheer difference in the amount of submitted posts you can determine that he/she is much more experienced than I am). The suggestion to provide the configuration file for the VM (together with logs showing the failed startup process) would be the ultimate step forward to solve this issue; I just fear that you might be unskilled enough (to-date) to provide this (not so) low-level information, and would like to offer a "GUI-style" workaround to check for the information.

[continuum]

posting the vmx-file should be possible even for absolute beginners

the vmx-file is the file that can be doubleclicked to launch a VM

[WoodyZ]

Normally an internal Optical Drive does not show on Safely Remove Hardware from with a Windows Virtual Machine however if it does and Martina did remove the Optical Drive via Safely Remove Hardware from within a Windows Virtual Machine then it really should be as simple as going into the Virtual Machine's Settings and checking the Connect at power on check box or adding back the device if it was removed from the configuration however sometimes it's just much easier to determine the actual state of the situation from the technical information in the .vmx and .log files then dealing with the user directly.

If on the other hand is was removed via Safely Remove Hardware on the Host then rebooting the Host should detect the device and add it back and then it would be available for the Virtual Machine to use.  Worst case scenario it would have to be added back through Add a device in Devices and Printers in Control Panel under the Windows 7 Host however a reboot of the Host normally takes care of something such as this.

The problem is the User!

[ItsMeHere]

posting the vmx-file should be possible even for absolute beginners

I absolutely agree, especially if that absolute beginner is asking for help.

the vmx-file is the file that can be doubleclicked to launch a VM

What if Martina never tried that "double-click vmx file" option, but always used WS's GUI to start a VM? :smileyconfused:

Anyhow, and as I wrote: It was just an offering for a different option to gather the required information.

[WoodyZ]

If the User doesn't understand or know how to provide the requested files then the User can ask however there really is no good substitution for having the actual files themselves when dealing with a new or relativity new User or a User that doesn't really understand how all of this works.  That said the requested files give a much better overview then any one screen shot is going to provide.

[ItsMeHere]

I'd say that almost any (not so) recent notebook that I came across offers to "safely remove" the CD/DVD drive...

And I doubt that the drive has been "safely removed" from the VM...

But as you're actually pointing at it, there's one thing unclear to me in Martina's intial posting:

When I boot up work station or try to connect after its up, I get "ide device not found".

What exactly does that mean, Martina?

Workstation is the virtualisation software, and does not get booted. It gets started as a software.

You can start a VM, which causes the guest OS to perform a boot operation inside the VM.

Do you get this message when a) you're starting the Workstation software, or b) when you try to connect the host's CD drive to the VM, or c) at a different situation or d) all of the above?

[WoodyZ]

Look, I made the statements regarding Safety Remove Hardware from both perspectives just to cover the bases so to speak and obviously it should go without having to say that the device was removed from the Host!  Secondly it also obvious that Martina doesn't have a good handle on the situation as shown by the use of improper terms and the bottom line is without having the technical information previously requested then we can just continue to waste time going back and forth on this for nothing however I don't intend to and I'm done here!

[Martina20111014]

just because I am not a hw guru doesn't mean I'm a beginner....

and reading this thread makes me think if somebody makes one mistake somewhere you think they are an *****

I do dispense advice on other technical forums and have for years and must say I've never come across a discussion like this.

so lets start over, since I really do want the darn thing working. It does work fine on an older dell laptop, but that thing doesn't have enough horese power to run vm images with a decent performance.

I have several images and some I am happy to share data of and some I'd rather not in a public forum. They all have the issue with the CD drive.

I had one up that I'd rather not, so instead of spending 5+ minutes of booting one up that I can share, I just blocked out the sensitive pice.

yes, it's set to automatically detect.

I zipped up the vmx and the log files of one of them and I'm attaching them here

[Martina20111014]

p.s. the host where the image can connect to the CD drive is XP. It works both on a old Dell and a IBM T410.

The host with the problem is win 7 and a T510.

It could also be a win 7 issues. I only have one win 7 box.

I read through all the helps.

Which is how I arrived at the original post.

And as a workaround I've considered making an iso image form the CD and using that, but I really, really don't want to do that, but it is still faster than copying the image to the underpowerd older boxes and waiting for it to boot and become responsive.

[Martina20111014]

p.p.s. the ide error comes from vm - removable devices - CD - settings - advanced ; It is set to resemble an IDE drive there, but according to the docs this setting indicates what device VMware will present it as to the image, not what it is looking for on the host.

[continuum]

Hi
autodetect for CDs/ DVDs works nice if your host has only one CD/DVD drive.

If you have more , or occasionally plugin USB-writers or use apps like Daemon-tools do not use autodetect - instead assign the driveletter directly.
Thats way more reliable

[Martina20111014]

thein lies the problem. I have the vm image shut down, I go to "Edit virtual machine Settings" - CD ; and the drop down next to "use physical device" only has "auto detect" on the win 7 box.

On the XP box, I also see D:.

I will reboot everything on win 7 and see whether that helps, as that CD drive turned itself off to save power originally.

[continuum]

if that option is not available you could try to set it yourself
see my notes http://sanbarrow.com/vmx/vmx-cd-settings.html