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J-H
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

64 bit cdrom driver for Vista and Longhorn

Using the 32 bit version of vista and longhorn works fine with the cdrom driver provided by PaulVCP referenced in http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=633267.

With the 64 bit version of vista and longhorn the cdrom driver issue is still more than annoying.

I tried several approaches using a local dvd device on the ESX server, connecting to a ISO on the VI client, and connecting to a virtual CDROM provided by Daemon tools on a W2K3 server – all approaches failed.

I finally managed to install longhorn beta 3 using the virtual CDROM provided by Virtual CloneDrive on my laptop running Vista.

Does somebody have a cdrom driver for the x64 versions of longhorn and vista?

It would be more than appreciated if VMware would make a 64 bit and 32 bit driver available. Okay, longhorn is not released yet, but vista is released since more than a few months and it should not be too difficult for VMware to create the necessary drivers.

I know we can complain about Microsoft making these drivers necessary with the new operating systems. Maybe somebody will say this was done by intention. Anyhow, this does not solve the problem and the best VMware can do is providing the necessary drivers.

The current situation that ESX customers face when they try to install a major operating system, like Vista and Longhorn, is an excellent argument for VMware’s competition to tell customers they should not use ESX. Therefore, I’m wondering why this situation is accepted since months.

VMware please provide the 64 bit versions of these drivers – it is for your advantage!

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3 Replies
Milton21
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Set the settings for the VM to have the cdrom drive to use passthrough and this will fix the problem

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J-H
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have tried the installation with and without passthrough. The only way I was successful previously was using Virtual CloneDrive as installation device.

But this does not solve the issue that the “DVD/CD-ROM NECVMWar VMware IDE CDR00 ATA Device” inside the VM fails. I would prefer a VM that has a DVD/CDROM drive.

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JammyB
Contributor
Contributor

Granted the CD ROM issue is a problem, however the 64 bit version can be installed on VM Server and then use vmkfstools to import the vmdk into ESX.

I'm sure VMware will provide a valid 64 bit driver once LH/2008 is released.

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