I am running VMware Workstation 11.1.2 on Windows 7 x64. I have several virtual machines which I believe were originally created in Workstation 10, one maybe with Workstation 9. In all cases the ...
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I am running VMware Workstation 11.1.2 on Windows 7 x64. I have several virtual machines which I believe were originally created in Workstation 10, one maybe with Workstation 9. In all cases the virtual machine freezes during boot when the CD/DVD drive is connected. The usage of CPU0 goes to near 100% until I go into VM settings and remove the check next to connected on the CD/DVD. I tried to analyze the problem with the xperf tool in the Microsoft Performance Toolkit on the host system but it didn't help much. It shows the CPU cycling between iaStorA.sys and storport.sys during the freeze period, which I think just tells me there is a problem with the CD/DVD driver, which I already knew. I have tried changing the CD/DVD Advanced Settngs but nothing changes. I tried SATA, SCSI, and IDE with different channels as well as 'Legacy emulation'. I have the latest VMware Tools 9.9.3 installed on all machines except one which has 9.6.2. I didn't upgrade that one to see if it made a difference but it doesn't. My machines are both Windows 7 and Windows XP. In other words, none of the changes I can think of make any difference: CD/DVD settings, VMware Tools version, operating system. I think this problem existed in previous versions of Workstation. I was using 11.0.0 before this and had periodic freezes that might last around 30 seconds, which I also noticed with version 10. But I never really diagnosed that and just learned to work around it. Now it happens pretty consistently depending on whether the CD/DVD is connected or not. Writing this gave me another idea. I created a new VM with 11.1.2 and low and behold the problem is cured! I don't want to have to recreate all my VMs, but that does give me hope that this problem can be fixed, which I was starting to doubt before. I did a quick comparison of the old and new vmx file but nothing really jumps out at me. Anyone have any idea where to go from here?