vmware.exe - No Disk error on workstation 7 startup

[rasnyder]

I am getting an error at startup of the VMware Workstation 7 itself. Not a startup of a virtual machine, but the start up of the VMware workstation 7. The error is as follows "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \DevicHarddisk1\DR1" This seemed to start to happen after I started up a BackTrack VM given to me by my community college instructor. He was not able to help.

There are buttons for Cancel, Try Again, and Continue. I’ve clicked them all several times. I have also tried re-installing the VMware Workstation 7 but the problem remains. I have attached a MS Word document with the error message I am getting. My version of the Workstation is 7.0.1 build 227600

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

Bob

[continuum]

please post screenshots in a format that can be used directly such as jpg or png.

The vmx-file for that VM contains an entry for a floppy, CD or other device that does not exist on your host.

This can be helped - attach the vmx-file so we can look at it




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[rasnyder]

I get this error upon first clicking on the VMware icon on my desktop just to start the VMware workstation. I have not yet been given an opportunity to select a .vmx file to open.

Because this happens before I can even start a virtual machine I tried uninstalling (via control panel) and then reinstalling the VMware Workstation 7 (Windows 7 version) software. Yet same error message. The BackTrack I mentioned was downloaded directly from the BackTrack website.

[continuum]

what is \DevicHarddisk1\DR1 - is that a card-reader ?




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[rasnyder]

Thats just it, I don't know.

The VM's I am using for this class (Vista and Server 2008) were given to me by instructor. They worked fine for 7 weeks of labs (5 labs /week). This error started after using the BackTrack (VM?) given to me by same instructor. No of the other student in the class seems to have this problem. Iwas told that what was given me was a copy of what was downloaded from the BackTrack web site. I don't know if I am the only one using VMware on a Windows 7 host or not.

I realy thought this would go away when I completly uninstalled then reinstalled the VMware Workstation software.

About the image, I used Alt-Print Screen that copied the error message window to the clipboard which I pasted into a MS Word document. Any suggestions there?

Bob

[rasnyder]

When I first got this message I would click on one of the 3 buttons (Cancel, Try Again, Continue) about 10 times and it would go away and I would able to power on my VM’s. Now however, after having done this a few times to get by the message, I am not able to move forward at all. I can click as fast as I can for 60 – 70 times or more and never get it to go away as I have before. I now have to use Task Manage to end the session and cannot use this product at all.

Something else I’ve noticed is that after I reinstall the product, the 2 VM’s that I’ve worked with in the past are still listed under Favorites. I would have thought that after a reinstall that the Favorites would/should be empty, as if I never opened a VM before.

I don’t know if this is another symptom to my problem or not, just an observation.

Thanks again everyone,

Bob

[continuum]

please try to find out what \DevicHarddisk1\DR1 is




___________________________________

VMX-parameters- WS FAQ -[ MOAcd|http://sanbarrow.com/moa241.html] - VMDK-Handbook

[rasnyder]

I cannot find out what \Device\Harddisk1\DR1 is.

I don’t know how else to convey the fact that I am unable to do anything else than what I have described here.

I get this message when I initially click on the VMware desktop icon to initially invoke VMware Workstation. At this time, no matter how many times I click “Cancel” or “Try Again” or “Continue” the message box flickers and is still there. The only way I am able to get by it now is to use the three finger solute, select Task Manager and End the task.

Thanks for your patients,

Bob

[rasnyder]

This problem is related to the “Favorites” (with the red heart) that is on the Sidebar. Sometime ago (9+ weeks ago) I had added the 2 VM’s I am using to the Favorites to make it convenient to start/Power on the VM’s. This problem just started happening 2 weeks (4/12/2010) ago.

This is what I did:

1. I started the VMware Workstation and then continued to click the “Continue” button on the message window until it went away (about 83 times).

2. I then right clicked on one of the VM’s I had added to the “Favorites” list (with the red heart) on the Sidebar.

3. I again clicked “Continue” until the message box went away and the submenu (?) from my right-click appeared.

4. I selected “Remove form Favorites” or “Remove from this list” I forget what the exact wording was.

5. I again clicked “Continue” on the No Disk message box until it went away.

6. There was another “Remove this item” confirmation selection.

7. Then you guessed it, more clicking of the “Continue” button until the No Disk message box went away.

8. I repeated steps 2 – 7 (above) for the second VM I had added to the Favorites (with red heart).

I am no longer getting the haunting No Disk message box/window. I am thinking this may be a bug. How do I go about reporting it as such? Or dose the procedure I described to you indicate what was going on?

Thanks again,

Bob

[rasnyder]

This forum did not help resolve the problem. It was resolved by trial and error. So this issue was not answered but because I resolved it myself it should be closed.

[1goofyguy]

I had been getting the same error for sometime, but seemed to be hit and miss, except the error was with "\Device\Harddisk4\DR3". I looked in the VMWare preferences file, but still couldn't figure out which virtual disk it was erroring on. Of course I have about 10 images that I use regularly, so a lot of text to review.

Also, when this error occured, it locked up all my applications and couldn't hit the "Cancel" "Continue" buttons even. I had to Ctrl-Alt-Delete which then allowed me to get to the error box and cancel, then cancel the Ctrl-Alt-Delete request.

FInally - I decided to review the Shared Folders tab on the VMWare image, and much to my surprise, there were a couple of drive pointers there were no longer available (one was a path to an existing host drive, but the directory had since been deleted). I deleted the errant Name and HostPath, and problem solved.

Seems simple, and I probably should have looked there long ago. Hopefully this will help someone in the future avoid some frustration.

[BrynDN]

I was having the same problem as 1goofyguy. Every time I started VMWare Workstation I would get the error 6 times. Thanks to 1goofyguy I started looking in my Workstation Favorites. Sure enough there was an old VM from a path that no longer exists on my machine (a network drive). Problem however, is that if I right clicked to delete from the list, it would pop up with the error message as soon as I clicked. It would keep popping up 50-100 times. I'd click through them, but when done the right-click menu did not appear.

Solution: I finally thought to add a folder to favorites, move the item to it, then delete the folder. Creating a folder was not a problem. Then when I went to drag the bad favorite into the folder, it gave me the error message as soon as I clicked on it. However, I noticed that the drag seemed to continue even after the message appeared. So I clicked the favorite (the message immediately appeared) and kept dragging into my new folder. Then after clicked the message until it was gone, the item moved into the folder! So I right clicked the folder and delete it "with contents.' Now, no more error messages! Hope that helps someone!

[KeniBarwick]

Spot on...

I had 5 missing VM's in my favourites causing this issue.

Now fixed due to the method just above.

Good work.

K

[abradway]

This is has been driving me up the wall, I had an external hard drive with some images on it for testing. I added a couple of those image to my favorites while testing and then gave the drive back to a customer. Then that meant everytime I started up Vmware I would get the error and end up clicking the cancel button 20-30 times.

After some searching I found an easy way to do this via this post...http://alfonsobatres.blogspot.com/2009/09/vmwareexe-no-disk.html

But instead of deleting the entire vmware directory and loosign my other favoriates. I found that you could edit the 'favorites.vmls' in the

C:\Users\your_user_name\AppData\Roaming\VMware directory

The file looks like this, find the bad entery and delete all of the refereces to the missing image, save it and your all set

vmlist1.config = "C:\images\W2KPro\Windows 2000 Professional.vmx"
vmlist1.DisplayName = "Windows 2000 Professional"
vmlist1.ParentID = "0"
vmlist1.ItemID = "1"
vmlist1.SeqID = "0"
vmlist1.VmPath = "/vm/|23c699bbb1bcae533e/"
vmlist1.IsClone = "false"
vmlist1.CfgVersion = "8"
vmlist1.Dest = ""
vmlist2.config = "C:\images\Upgrade testing - XP11\Upgrade testing - XP11.vmx"
vmlist2.DisplayName = "Upgrade testing - XP11"
vmlist2.ParentID = "0"
vmlist2.ItemID = "2"
vmlist2.SeqID = "4"
vmlist2.VmPath = "/vm/|239111c6b6988bf76c/"
vmlist2.IsClone = "false"
vmlist2.CfgVersion = "8"
vmlist2.Dest = ""

[rdp032]

I had the same problem with Workstation 8.

The fix in the GUI is to remove all entries from the 'Library' sidebar (F9); then (right click VM -> select 'delete'). This simply deletes the entry - not the VM if it does happen to reference a valid VM on disk. Next time you run a VM it will automatically be added to the Library.

Figure 1. Library after cleaning

Basically, there is the favourites.vmls and inventory.vmls (%AppData%/Roaming/VMware/) that is retained even on re-install that remembers every VM you have played with and if, like me, you rearrange your partitions/mount points (ie, during a laptop rebuild or running VMs from external media), the library references mount points/locations that no longer exist. To manually clear up this problem or for a completely clean re-install, ensure you clean out the above location on Windows7.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Rodney

[dawong]

This may help beginners who are getting this message.

I had a similar problem on a virtual machine and virtual disk I created on a USB stick with Workstation 8.  It worked fine on two computers but kept getting the "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \DevicHarddisk1\DR1" error on the third.  After I clicked continue enough times, the VM would run fine.

It turns out I had done something stupid.  I went to settings and the Disk File was listed as "E:\Ubuntu...".  When I put the USB in the first two computers, the USB was assigned drive E:.  However, the third one had a card reader, so the USB was assigned to J: and of course it could not find anything on E:.

I used the VM Settings manager to create a new disk with the same name without any drive prefix = "Ubuntu..."  I deleted the old drive, and everything worked.  I believe that when I set up the VM there was a box that said "assign this a specific drive" and I left it checked...never again.

Derek

[BrynDN]

I am in training until May 29, 2012. I will not have access to email during this time, but will respond as soon as I return. Have a great day!

[NMestanas]

Also in Workstation 8.  Mine was caused by charging my phone from USB and having the connection set to "Charge Only".  Once connected, removeable drive letters show but are not valid.  If I disconnect the phone, or change the connection to Mass Storage so the drives mount, the error goes away.  This was with my Droid and my BB.

This was quite maddening as I don't always have my phone connected so some days I'd get the error and other days I wouldn't.  Sometimes I would need Mass Storage mode to transfer files to/from the phone and then get no error.  So it wasn't obvious what was causing it.  I just got lucky and needed to switch USB modes in between different sessions in Workstation when I finally realized what was happening.

[k4k4]

I had the same problem with VMWare Player 5, the error tex was "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \Device\Harddisk3\DR3." I have splitted my hard drive to two disks, C and D. I also have used virtual machines from two external USB hard drives. Looking from Computer Management I found out that laptops newly replaced hard drive was Disk 0 and USB drives were Disks 2 and 3 while my usb 4G router had taken the Disk 1. The error text was a bit misleading but when the 4G device was removed VMWare succeeded to start. Once VMWare Player was started, I could plug the device back in. I had used the similar set up earlier but as said before I had just got a new SSD hard drive which maybe mixed the drives.

[Dodoweird]

if that could help, I had the same issue,

for me it was my printer... it has a slot for usb-stick and memory card...

everytime the printer was on, the error was there, but not when the printer was turned off.